


Professional Life

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: Lives in Common [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bottom Wesley, Buffy is the Real Slayer, Canon Dialogue, Car Accidents, Closeted Character, Comparative Traffic Law, Developing Relationship, Double Life, Ejaculation, Emotional volatility, Episode: s03e14 Bad Girls, Faith has issues, Faith is bi, Faith is the Real Slayer, Faith's issues have issues, Fear, Fear of Discovery, Fussy Englishmen, Gay/Bi Relationships, Getting On Each Other's Nerves, Giles gets knocked on the head, Giles is a wreck, Giles is smug about Wesley being clueless, Guilt, Law Enforcement, M/M, Morning After, Odd Couples, Oral Sex, Passive-aggression, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rare Pairings, Really thin excuses to spend the night, Resentment, Secret Relationship, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Semi-Public Sex, Simultaneous Orgasm, Slayer-Watcher Relationship, Snyder has no idea what's happening but he doesn't like it, Sort of Canon Compliant If You Squint, Struggle for Dominance, Summer of Giles 2018, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Top Giles, Unsafe Sex, Walking In On Someone, Watchers, Watchers' Council (BtVS), Wesley is a mess, Wesley is clueless, Wesley is smug anyway, defensivemess, fear of exposure, incarceration, interruptions, interruptions in the middle of (or just before the middle of) sex, lost clothing, oblique references to AIDS epidemic, spite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-05-23 13:05:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14934803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: Giles and Wesley try to forget both their differences and their failed attempt at romance so that they can work together to help the Slayers; in other words, to keep things professional.  That lasts all of eighteen hours.





	1. Controlled Circumstances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lisianpeia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisianpeia/gifts).



There they sat in the otherwise empty library. Two Watchers. Two men. Alone together at last. Neither pleased to be so. The dashed hopes of the previous weekend seemed a cruel joke. Neither Giles nor Wesley wished to know the other as well as he did, heaven forbid any better. What they both wanted now was to forget about Friday night and its revelations altogether, to relate to one another on a purely professional basis.

Awkward silence prevailed for few moments. Within a quarter of an hour, Giles dearly longed to have those moments back. From the second the fool Watcherling found his tongue, he never stopped talking, covering his nervousness with pomposity, as such men do. Explaining things. It was appalling. Embarrassing.

Had he ever been such an ass? Yes, certainly. But at a much younger age, long before he finally submitted to his destiny and became a Watcher. Wesley spoke with a conviction of his own infallibility more becoming to a lad of seventeen than a man of twenty-seven.

Something had to be done to stop his incessant prattling. He was explaining what a “Hellmouth” _really_ was (and why it was truly nothing a prepared Slayer or Watcher should fear) making reference to the writings of Herodotus in doing so. A globe had become involved. And he had used the word “commence” in cold blood.

“All that may be well and good,” Giles assayed diplomatically. “But when you actually begin to come to grips with the events and creatures that feed on the demonic energy of this place—”

“Yes, well,” Wesley cut him off, “I shouldn't wonder if actual contact with the supernatural tended to rattle the young Watchers of _your_ generation, what with the... unfortunately limited—which is not to say backward, but limited none-the-less—nature of the training you were given...”

“That's not the point,” Giles insisted shortly, getting a bit hot under the collar. “What you are failing to take into account is that no amount of training can prepare you for the reality—”

“Yes, yes,” Wesley casually waived his concern away, “No amount of study, no books and lectures can prepare one to come to grips with the Enemy. But, of course, training procedures have been updated quite a bit since your day. Much greater emphasis on field work.”

“Really,” Giles sighed, or perhaps huffed. There was no telling this fool anything. It was just as it had been Friday night, when he'd insisted on following Grim into the men's room. … Then again.... “I suppose you did make rather short work of our 'Grim Reaper',” he admitted, half grudgingly.

But Wesley did not know how to take a compliment in good grace. “Precisely,” he declared with a smug little smile. “You see, it's not all books and theory nowadays. Before coming to Sunnydale, I had already faced two vampires. Under controlled circumstances, of course.”

“I see,” Giles said, beginning to thaw a bit. Perhaps, in spite of his youthful arrogance, this Wesley chap would turn out to be a decent Watcher after all. Perhaps there was something to the new training regimen. Still, “Well you're in no danger of finding any more of those here,” he half joked, smiling warmly in spite of himself. Maybe, if they worked together, the two of them could help Buffy more than either alone could have. Maybe, once in a great while, they might even find a little time to get to know one another, as they had failed to do Friday night.

And yet... “Vampires?” the fool asked. Totally shocked. Missing Giles's meaning entirely, never mind making any reasonable assessment of how serious he wasn't.

Giles shook his head, his silly hopes evaporating. Wesley was still looking at him pointedly. Earnestly. Waiting for an explanation. “Controlled circumstances,” he obliged finally with grim amusement.

Wesley's brow knit as he tried to work out whether or not he had just been insulted. The poor dear seemed to have had his sense of humor surgically removed. It had seemed so on Friday night as well, but Giles had just assumed he was nervous, being so clearly out of his element.

Mercifully, Buffy walked into the library and rescued them both from the tedious conversation in which they had become engulfed. “Well!” Wesley declared, his eyes shining with something surprisingly like awe. Too long a moment passed before he followed that up with the inevitable, anticlimactic “Hello”, extending his hand to her.

Buffy looked Wesley up and down skeptically. “New Watcher?” she asked, clearly addressing Giles alone.

“New Watcher,” Giles agreed, unable to stop his inflection from indicating his very doubtful assessment of Wesley's suitability to that role, the recent demise of the Grim Reaper of Wilkins Street notwithstanding.

“Wesley Wyndam-Pryce,” he introduced himself levelly, hand still extended, his smile uncertain but hopeful. Buffy continued to stare at him intently. “It's... very nice to meet you,” he tried again, his smile faltering just a little as his eyes darted to Giles for guidance. Considering the rather lengthy discourse he had been giving all morning about his entire lack of need for any assistance from his predecessor in any capacity what-so-ever, Giles did not feel inclined to throw him a line.

“Is he evil?” Buffy asked, still ignoring the proffered appendage. The two young people batted that concept back and forth for a few moments. Having perhaps the shallowest philosophical debate on the nature of evil in the history of all mankind.

Giles's mind wandered just a bit. If Mrs. Post hadn't been what she was, and if not for that bloody test, the Council clearly intended that two Watcher's be assigned, one to each Slayer. Why was it that they now felt the need to assign only one? Especially _this_ one? Were they truly opposed to his carrying on his work with Buffy unofficially, or were they counting on it?

Two Watchers for the price of one and extra leverage over the one who had already proven himself most difficult, though also most valuable? He certainly wouldn't put it past them engineer such a situation, to take advantage of his devotion to Buffy even while hobbling him to someone far more devoted to the Council. It would be the best of both worlds for them, to be able to keep making use of his knowledge and experience and yet to keep him on a much shorter leash.

“Is he evil?” Buffy repeated after hearing everything that Wesley had to say. Making a show of having been in no way impacted by even a single word that he had said.

“Not in the strictest sense,” Giles admitted with a small smile. Her humorless dolt of a Watcher whined and snarked his way through what he seemed to think was a dignified response to the indignity of being thus discussed. Feeling a slight prickle of guilt, Giles prompted Buffy to discussed her latest patrol with Wesley, in proper respect of his new position. Which went all right up to the point at which he tried to give her 'orders' and was actually fool enough to call them that.

Not that Giles could say much about that, he realized, considering how he had first approached her in his early days on the Hellmouth. Dear God, had it really only been two years? Yes, in fact, slightly less. He kept thinking back to those days and feeling that he ought to be able to cut young Wesley just a bit more slack. But it was difficult to do that when he kept working so damnably hard at being such a pompous ass.

Still, in spite of Wesley's ham-fisted methods, there was never any real danger that Buffy would fail to do her duty. Faith, on the other hand, was another matter. She shocked Wesley to his toes when she dismissed his authority with a simple, “Screw that,” as large parts of both Giles and Buffy would have liked to have done, if it wasn't for the small matter of the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Wesley seemed only a little relieved when Buffy agreed to go fetch Balthazar's Amulet, just as he'd asked, and to attempt to bring Faith back to task in the process. Well and no wonder. A strong-willed Slayer like Buffy, one who didn't take kindly to being told how to complete a mission, was one thing. But a truly insubordinate Slayer, one who felt that every mission was hers to accept or reject for as slight a reason as not particularly caring for her Watcher, was quite another. This situation with Faith, if left unchecked, could quickly become very dangerous.

Giles worried over that possibility a moment, trying to decide how seriously Faith had meant her off the cuff rejection of the Council's new man and how likely Buffy was to be a mediating influence. He only realized that he had begun absently cleaning his glasses when he caught Wesley doing the same. He stopped immediately, but it was too late. Wesley has already noticed his Brother Watcher's identical nervous behavior. Their eyes locked. They stared, each into the unfathomable depths of the other's gaze, for much too long a moment.

“Well, you can take the boy out of the Academy...” Giles said, smiling sheepishly.

At this tacit admission of commonality between them, even Wesley smiled a little. Proving that he was not absolutely without a sense of humor after all.


	2. Awake and Alert at All Hours

Afternoon faded to evening and drug on slowly into night. The library remained open long after the rest of the campus was dark and deserted, as usual. Giles and Wesley sat reading their books in stony silence. Spending the entire day together without an intermission longer than a stroll to the men's room had taken a toll on their already frosty professional relationship.

Giles was researching the Demon Balthazar for a clue as to why the Eliminati, who (like most vampires) were not know to be overly sentimental, would risk crossing swords with two Slayers at once just to retrieve a supposedly useless amulet. Meanwhile, Wesley browsed through the Watcher diaries, apparently thinking that he would come to know Buffy, Faith, and Giles better by reading about them than by talking to them.

“You know,” Giles ventured, trying to sound less annoyed than he actually felt, “I am trying to find information on the threat the Sayers are actually facing at the moment. It might go a bit faster if you lent a hand.”

Wesley ignored that entirely. He had already made his opinion on the subject quite clear. There was no need wasting valuable time researching the history of a dead demon and his useless amulet. The Elimanti themselves hardly posed a threat, there number being down to no more than two or three. Even if it took him a few days to bring Faith to heel, from what he'd read of her exploits, Buffy could manage them well enough on her own.

He had already patiently explained all of that to both Buffy and Giles of course, swallowing the indignity of explaining himself to the Ex-Watcher as the price of getting even one Slayer's cooperation. God, he could just hear what his superiors on the Council would say. _We gave you this assignment because we thought you could handle yourself. How do you expect to rein in your Slayers, let alone defeat the forces of evil, if you can't even deal with the likes of Rupert Giles?_

Speaking of the devil, Giles was staring at him. Expectantly. Those damnable green eyes pierced him like some sort of soul seeking laser. Had he just said something? Almost certainly.

Wesley played it off. Pretending to disdain whatever had just been said as unworthy of any answer, just as he had the invitation to put by his essential study into the workings of the team he was meant to lead to indulge in reading irrelevant nonsense for the sake of pure curiosity. “These are all of the diaries, then?” he said instead. “Yours included?” managing a reasonably cool and professional tone if he did say so himself.

“That's everything,” Mr. Giles noted crossly. “Knock yourself out. Please.” He added the last word 'under his breath' but clearly meant to be heard. Like a petulant child. Wesley aimed a reproachful look in the older man's direction, meaning to say something to that effect.

Their eyes locked for a moment and all Wesley's intended remonstrations fled from his mind leaving his tongue bound to the roof of his suddenly very dry mouth. Was it only anger that burned in the gaze that held his, or something more? It hardly mattered he told himself rather forcefully. Either form of passion meant nothing but danger and regret ahead. Neither was of any use to the work he had before him in this American purgatory.

Wesley turned away, only realizing after the fact that doing so could be seen as capitulation. Dear God, it was like being at school all over again. His eyes desperately searched out something in the text before him to support the proposition that he had been looking toward his books rather than away from a challenge.

“Ah yes.” He said, covering his shock and relief in a semblance of smug self-satisfaction, which became more genuine as he began to read. “Here is your first entry. 'The Slayer is willful and insolent.' That would be our girl, wouldn't it.” It actually described both of them pretty well, truth be told.

“You have to get to know her,” Giles murmured, genuinely embarrassed. Clearly speaking only of Buffy. Not bothering to argue the point when it came to Faith.

“... 'Her Abuse of the English language is such that I understand only every other sentence.'” he continued, enjoying the disconcerting effect this recital was having on his redundant predecessor, perhaps just a bit too much. Taking a small measure of vengeance for all the tiny ways in which Mr. Giles had undermined his authority throughout the day. “this is going to make fascinating reading.”

Giles sighed heavily and resolved to stop giving the pillock quite so much opportunity to ridicule him by holding his own tongue until Buffy returned. But that thought lead into another, rather worrisome one.

He looked at his watch. It confirmed that Buffy had been gone over three and a half hours. The Gleaves crypt was only about eight miles away. She should have been able to kill the last two or three Eliminati, retrieve the amulet, stop at the Bronze for a celebratory dance, change her wardrobe, and turn up at the library with a box of jelly donuts by now.

“She should be here by now,” he said aloud. Not bothering to hide the worry in his voice. He was right to be worried and so should her official Watcher have been, if he were up to the job.

The snide little pustule looked at his own watch. “Not to fret,” he said with insufferable smugness, nonchalantly popping a mint into his mouth as he spoke, making a spectacle of his indifference. “My mission scenario has her back in exactly one minute.” He tapped the watch for emphasis. “Shouldn't be any trouble.” Pillock.

Seconds ticked by. Too many. The air in the room seemed to be getting thinner. Wesley went on reading in triumphant silence. Useless to the cause and to Buffy.

Giles was on the point of rising, of setting off in search of her; damn protocol, caution, his suspended driving license, and most especially Wesley Wydam-Pryce; when Buffy swaggered in. She had the amulet in her hand and Faith in tow, just as instructed. Wesley tapped his watch and smiled smugly. One minute.

Wesley's smugness didn't last long. Both Slayers started laying into him at once. Excoriating him for sending them out so ill prepared thanks to his wildly inaccurate assessment of the enemy, whom Buffy described with caustic irony as “not nearly extinct enough.”

“Seriously, though,” Faith echoed, a bit more blasé perhaps, but still with a significant bit of censure in her tone. “The evening's entertainment was not as advertised. It was almost interesting.” Wesley had the unpleasant feeling that she meant to say it was almost fatal.

Worst of all, they handed the amulet to Giles without even being prompted, as if Wesley weren't even there. The ExWatcher took it, peered at it, turned it over in his hand, hefted it for weight, pocketed it for 'safe keeping', and dismissed the Slayers to “Go and get some rest,” without so much as a glance in the direction of the man who was supposed to be in charge of this operation.

The Slayers turned and made a beeline for the door. “Now wait just a moment!” Wesley ordered them firmly. They ignored him and continued on their way. He turned to Mr. Giles to entreat his assistance and found the villain smiling wickedly. The fact that his wicked smile was so undeniably attractive only made Wesley feel more hopelessly ineffectual. He could barely master himself, let alone anyone else, least of all the Slayers.

Wesley's shoulder's slumped. What was the point? He decided to call it a night and try again in the morning. All he needed was to get a good night's rest. In his brand new and slightly too firm bed. In his Spartan, Council-funded, flat with none of the comforts of home. Which was located across town. Five miles of vampire infested nightscapes away. In a town in which, Mr. Giles had given him to understand, vampires roved the night in taxicabs, some of them looking for more than a fair.

“Erm...” he said awkwardly, examining his hands, “Could I perhaps trouble you for a ride home?”

Mr. Giles cleared his throat and replied, sounding unpleasantly embarrassed himself, “Only if you'd be willing to drive.” Wesley looked at him in surprise. This time it was Mr. Giles who looked away, feigning an interest in the alignment of his cuff links. “My license had been suspended,” he admitted. “I narrowly escaped capture while driving to work this morning, and the patrols are doubled at this hour.”

“So, in actuality,” Wesley translated, feeling a bit less defeated, “It is I who must do you the favor of seeing you home this evening.”

“Well it is still my car,” Mr. Giles mumbled sullenly.

Wesley sighed but held his tongue. They had only ten minutes or so left to get through together before each would be free to sleep peacefully in his own bed and gather the strength he needed to get through the next day. Surely they could go that long without arguing. And they might have. If Wesley could have only remembered to drive on the wrong side of the road.


	3. Deja Vu Just Isn't What It Used to Be

“On the right,” Giles admonished Wesley tiredly as he pulled out of the parking lot and into the wrong lane. Wesley must have genuinely failed to hear him this time. He had no reason to ignore such an important reminder. Either he was hard of hearing, or easily distracted. Probably the latter, since he was peering intently at the street signs and totally ignoring an oncoming car only three blocks away.

“Get in the right-hand lane, you fool!” Giles shouted. “Are you trying to get us killed or arrested!?!”

The other car was perhaps a block away now. It had slowed to nearly a stop and was honking loudly. Wesley slammed on the breaks and swerved into the right-hand lane so quickly that he swung too wide and clipped a mailbox, denting the car door and leaving the box lilting at an odd angle.

Half a block on, Wesley pulled over to the curb and stopped completely. He sat there a moment, regaining his composure. “I say,” he managed at last, almost by way of apology, “They really do drive on the right here, don't they?” Giles ignored his statement of the obvious, glaring at him in stony silence.

“Well,” Wesley tried again, putting the car back in gear. “Now we've corrected our course we can get on—” But it was too late. A police car pulled out of the alley and in behind them, sirens blaring and lights flashing. Both officers got out and approached the Watchers' vehicle. They were Gary Stern and Terry Wiggins. Of course they were. Who else would they be?

Giles barely had time to take Balthazar's amulet out of his coat pocket and conceal it in the tiny secret compartment beneath the glove box. Wesley looked at him aghast, but it wasn't as though he had a better solution. Certainly it was less than ideal. The police stood a reasonable chance of finding and confiscating the amulet, which was, in point of fact, stolen. But if he'd kept it on him and they were arrested, it would certainly have been found.

“So, here we are again,” Stern crowed with cruel amusement as he strolled up to the driver's side window. He deflated a little when he saw that the person behind the wheel was not Rupert Giles, but he made the best of it. “Another one, eh?” he guessed with a mean little smile, still addressing the passenger rather than the driver.

“No, no,” Giles assured him, sounding put-upon but polite about it. “This is the same one. This is the chap who was good enough to drive you home Friday night,” he explained for Wesley's benefit.

Wesley looked acutely uncomfortable, as if the temperature inside the car had suddenly shot up to a hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit. “Well.... I...” he groped for a suitable response for this situation but came up empty handed. Worst of all, Giles was looking at him again. This time with what seemed very much like genuine compassion, which Wesley most certainly did not need from him.

The officers had made it crystal clear what they thought of his companion. He could well imagine what they must be thinking about him right now. God, it was humiliating to have his private life, even in rough outline, revealed to these petty, ignorant Americans. Worse still, if their unsupported yet accurate suspicions wound up in an official document that later came to the attention of the Council, both his engagement and his hopes to one day hold a seat on the Council himself would be in grave jeopardy.

“License and registration,” Stern demanded impatiently when several minutes had passed and the driver still had not produced a coherent sentence. Mainly though, he was just disappointed that he wasn't going to get to arrest Mr. Giles again tonight. He put the other one through a few field sobriety tests but his heart wasn't in it.

Finally, he wrote the young Englishman a ticked for careless driving and sent him on his way with a few words of advice deliberately uttered just loud enough for his unsavory passenger to hear. “Look,” he said, “far be it from me to tell one of _you_ guys where to get your kicks, I mean maybe you want to get hurt, who knows. But if you don't, stay away from that guy. I mean, I know you people like a little walk on the wild side, but you're playing with your life getting in a car with someone like that.”

“Yes, thank you,” Wesley said bruskly, snatching his driver's license and Giles's registration out of the officer's hand. “I'll be sure to keep that in mind.” There was a sharper edge to his voice than he'd intended, and for one dangerous moment, Stern's expression hardened. Thankfully, he let it go. He walked away shaking his head and signaled for his partner to follow.

“Two to one those two pulled into that alley to have a little snog,” Mr. Giles joked, trying to lighten the mood. Still giving him that look of pity or empathy or support or whatever it was, eyes twinkling in amusement just the same. Wesley handed him his registration papers with a frosty glare. Giles heaved a heavy sigh. “You know it sometimes helps to have a sense of humor about these things,” he chided Wesley gently.

“Hmph,” Wesley sniffed, still bristling from the indignity of it all. Without another word, he put the car in gear and headed back towards their apartment complex. Unfortunately, upon arrival he found he had to say something more to the man after all.

“I don't know where the parking is,” he admitted grudgingly. “Since I haven't a car, I didn't think to ask.”

“There's a slew of Garages round back of the second row of buildings,” Giles inform him helpfully. Politely even. “Pull in just there and round to the left.” God, it was infuriating to be politely helped by someone you truly hated. Especially if that someone looked like everything you hated longing to have wrapped around your naked body every minute of every day.

“Are you all right?” Giles asked, brows knitting together.

“Erm, what? No. Yes. Yes, of course,” Wesley stammered.

“I was just saying,” Mr. Giles continued patiently, “that it is a good thirty yards back to my front door and twice that to yours. “I assume you have a cross or something handy? I'd hate to think of you walking me safely home only to have to go on defenseless.”

Was there something hopeful in his voice or was Wesley only imaging it? A kind of gentle imploring tone, feeling out the possibility of suggesting that they stay together for strength in numbers at this late hour, or some equally coy approach to winding up naked in each other's arms.

He was probably imaging it Wesley decided. Still... they were just pulling into the garage that Giles had opened with a wand he kept in the glove box. Inside, the light was mercifully dim. Dim enough that they could not quite see one another's eyes, which made Wesley feel calmer, braver somehow. Less exposed.

And it had been five long days since he had kissed his last lover good bye back in London. For some people, apparently, that wasn't a long time. But for Wesley, it was. “I could,” he ventured, his voice involuntarily dropping to a husky whisper, “stop over at your flat.” He ventured so far as to lay a hand on the other man's thigh, heart hammering madly, almost as terrified of acceptance as rejection. “Just until sunrise?”

“Mmmmm,” Giles breathed out slow and raggedly. The pretense that either of them was contemplating the mere expediency of avoiding walking alone at night was paper thin. He was sure he would regret the decision he was contemplating. Probably they both would. But fifty-two days was a very long time, and at that moment, fifty-three seemed infinitely longer.

Impulsively, he leaned in, took Wesley's face in both hands and kissed him full on the lips. Wesley kissed him back at least as fiercely. Making a small noise of desperate need, something between a whine and a groan, Wesley made a fumbling grab for Rupert's belt.

The Ex-Watcher pulled back just a little and took Wesley's hands in his. His eyes twinkled. He was laughing softly. Not in a cruel way, but still.... Wesley stiffened a bit, suddenly fearing rejection much, much more than acceptance, bracing for the humiliation.

Rupert's laugh grew softer and gentler still. “I'm not keen on stopping either,” he clarified. “I just think we're both a bit old to be... carrying on in a parked car.”

Wesley felt about equal parts relieved and embarrassed. “I suppose I was rather, well, a bit...” he began sheepishly. Suddenly, Giles kissed him again before turning and opening his door to get out.

“One rule,” Wesley stated as firmly as he could manage, opening the door on his own side, “We cannot let anything... personal between us affect our professional life in any way.”

“Two,” Rupert corrected, still laughing but also quite serious, “neither of us speaks a word for the next hour.”

 


	4. Emotional Problems

Not a word, Giles reminded himself firmly. The pursed-lipped look of negative appraisal with which Wesley took in his cozy, neatly cluttered flat and it's comfortable well worn furnishings was both baffling and irritating. There was nothing whatsoever wrong with his living conditions. The Watcher's life was one of study and sacrifice, not luxury and display. He knew for a fact that the Council themselves would have backed him up on that.

But he was looking to get shagged here, not to win a petty argument about interior decorating. Therefore, not a word. Not even when Wesley silently judged him for hanging his suit jacket in the coat closet with Balthazar's Amulet still in the pocket. The bloody Eleminati were vampires. If he'd have left it laying on the coffee table with the door wide open, they couldn't do a thing about it. Where was he supposed to have put it, in a secret room behind a revolving bookcase?

Not a word. This was essential. And Rupert knew of one very nearly foolproof method to insure it. Not even stopping to pour drinks as he had vaguely intended, Giles wrapped his arms around Wesley. Both hands firmly grasping the younger man's buttocks beneath his suit jacket, he pressed his pelvis against his fastidious paramour's tightly enough to remove all doubt that they both badly needed this to happen, and for the same reason.

A long, longing sigh rattled out of Wesley's throat. He opened his mouth, in danger of speaking. Giles headed off that catastrophe with a fierce, hungry kiss. Wesley returned his kiss, ardently if a bit sloppily. There seemed to be slightly too much tongue involved, and that not quite in the right way, which was an inauspicious sign, really. Still, 'beggars can't be choosers' he reminded himself, hearing the voice of his old mentor, Quentin Travers, in his head.

Quentin Travers. He ought not to be imaging that the man in his arms was one and the same. He normally tried very hard not to involve Quentin in his fantasy life, knowing well that he would not have appreciated it. And too, recent events had tarnished and complicated his once pure and simple admiration for the man.

Still, desperate times called for desperate measures. And whatever else they might be, the two Watchers actually involved in this embrace were desperate men, driven by their common need to such an extent that concerns of personal incompatibility needed very much to be denied and ignored rather that confronted and resolved.

As he frantically unfastened Wesley's belt and trousers and knelt before him, pulling the relevant clothing down with him as he went; Giles imagined that the lean, deceptively muscular Watchers body that met his eyes, his hands, and his lips was that of his old teacher. Not as he likely was today, but as he had been over twenty years ago, when he had welcomed into his home and under his wing a young prodigal whose own parents were prepared to extend no such hospitality. He imagined that, against all probability, that dear man stood here before him, eager to accept his gratitude and affection in the form of worshipful oral sex.

Not a word, Wesley reminded himself as Mr. Giles knelt before him, pulling his trousers to the floor, kissing and caressing as he went, leaving him in the uncomfortable position of having to stand upright for the duration of an intense sexual act, making it difficult to relax and enjoy himself.

It should have been easy to keep his thoughts to himself. After all, he had managed to hold his tongue upon discovering the near squalor in which his erstwhile colleague lived and the caviler manner in which he treated objects of mystical significance, useless though they might be. He had managed to ignore the rudeness of his host's failure to offer him a drink to take the edge off a long hard day of ignoring each other, and of having to shrug out of his jacket and tie where he stood and toss them on the floor, having been denied the opportunity to dispose of them properly by his lover's rather sudden and demanding embrace.

Alright, truthfully, that last point only a very small part of him wanted to complain about, and it was certainly not the part that Mr. Giles was lovingly caressing as he prepared to take it into his mouth. And he was oh so very close to doing so. He kissed it. He licked it, rolling his tongue around the flushed and swollen head of it, teasing Wesley's erection from as nearly total as it tended to be during sex to a state of impossibly complete engorgement that he had rarely experienced.

It would take a great fool indeed, under these circumstances, to object to the location and position in which this almost unbearably sexy man proposed to suck his cock. Still, Wesley could not help but shift a bit uncomfortably, wondering how many minutes he would need to stand where he was, not quite near enough the wall or the couch to lean on either, waiting for his orgasm. It made him feel unpleasantly like a dog who was being made to heel for the promise of a treat.

It took Wesley so long to decide to speak that he suddenly found that his cock had already been enveloped in Rupert's mouth and half swallowed. What he had meant to say eluded him. “Oh dear God!” he cried out instead. “Please God yes!”

Mr. Giles knew what he was doing. He worked at Wesley's cock with his mouth hard and fast. It was not such a chore as he had imagined to stay on his feet, provided he set them as far apart as he could given the tangled of clothing around them and bent his knees just a bit. It wasn't as though he had to stand for such a long time either. Giles brought him to the edge of orgasm in no more than three or four minutes.

Then, unaccountably, he stopped. Taking his mouth away, Giles exposed Wesley's damp and painfully hard cock to the chill of the air-conditioned room. It was irritating and confusing. It left him unsatisfied to say the least.

“Mr. Giles!” Wesley demanded indignity, “What are we playing at!?!”

Mr. Giles looked shocked, then hurt, then angry. For a moment he seemed unable to speak. In that moment, Wesley was filled with self doubt and it's familiar accompanying dread of being judged. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, wishing he could unsay what he had said or at least apologize. But he was not certain enough to act on that impulse. Not sure if he would be correcting an error or making a cowardly retreat from a genuine grievance to which he had a perfect right.

“Well!?!” Wesley demanded instead, “Are you going to answer me or don't you think I even merit that much courtesy!?!” Suddenly, he wanted very much for Mr. Giles to be in the wrong, to prove himself a just target of those words, which, in point of fact, could not be unsaid. Rationally, he was aware that such was probably not the case or at least it wasn't as simple as that. But it was an awareness he could not entertain, choking as he was on his hatred of his own weakness and stupidity. How was it possible that he could fail to safely navigate a social situation that mere insects routinely handled with no trouble whatsoever?

At last, however, Mr. Giles did him the favor of simplifying the situation, once again, into a matter of direct conflict. “First off, we said no talking!” he snapped, getting quickly to his feet. “A rule which you have broken letter and spirit since the moment it was made! Making it impossible to pretend that you are anyone but the snide, self-important little fussbudget that you are! Second—!”

“Well excuse me for assuming that you meant to finish wh—!”

“ **SECOND!”** Giles shouted, cutting him off mid sentence, **“I was just about to fuck you, so I thought it might be a bit rude, not to mention uncomfortable to make you come first!”**

“Well I—” Wesley started, sounding indigent. Feeling it too. But he hardly knew what to say, so he closed his mouth and didn't say it.

Mr. Giles heaved a huge sigh. “It's late,” he pointed out shortly. Indeed, it was very nearly early. “Maybe we had best get some sleep.” The anger in his voice was more controlled now, but it was not gone. There was a deep sense of frustration in his demeanor as well, which Wesley thought a bit unfair, considering he was the one pulling out of the arrangement.

And that was the problem. This pretentious, self righteous scoundrel had no intention of finishing what he had started, of keeping his word in either letter or spirit. Realizing that he was, in fact, being turned away unsatisfied gave Wesley a much firmer grip on his anger. The fact that he was being blamed for it was beyond the pale. He felt his footing upon the moral high ground to be firm and secure once again.

“Very Well,” Wesley said stiffly, yanking his trousers up and fastening his belt. “Have it your way. I'll take the blame if that's the way you want to play it off. My not being pleased that you'd no intention of following through was somehow the cause of your unwillingness to do so. So be it. Go. Sleep. Do whatever you like. I shall certainly manage just as well without you.”

At that, Mr. Giles began to sputter and stammer, nearly apoplectic with anger and consternation. Wesley ignored him and commenced to open doors at random until he found a bathroom in which he could relieve himself in more ways than one. When he emerged, the older Watcher was gone. Upstairs to bed, presumably.

With a lump of resentment and sneaking self-doubt in his chest, Wesley settled down on Mr. Giles' ratty old sofa for a few hours of fitful, uncomfortable sleep. He dreamed about his father and his old headmaster. The times he'd disappointed them. The high marks he'd failed to get. Answers he'd gotten wrong at home and at school. Only this time, in these dreams, every time he failed to make the grade, two young women died. And Rupert Giles, a grinning vampire, laughed at his failure to save them.


	5. Not Helping

The first pale rays of sunlight filtered through the curtains awakening Giles from an all too short and not terribly restful sleep. He groaned miserably and pulled a pillow over his head, but he knew it was no use. He'd never get back to sleep now, which hardly mattered since he needed to be at the library in an hour or so anyhow.

Also, it was soon abundantly clear that he needed to take a very thorough shower. During the night, a rivulet of a certain unmistakable and very sticky substance had run down his leg, soiling the sheets and gumming the hair on his leg together.

Giles choked down a mouthful of curses. Weeks of enforces chastity, leading up to days of clumsy flirting, followed by intense but frustratingly incomplete sexual activity, finally culminating in nocturnal emissions. It was like being back at school! He might have been fifteen. And the whole business was still every bit as frustrating.

Still, if he could just plow through his morning routine and get to the Library, he could forget about last night's humiliation and—“GODDAMN BASTARD SON-OF-A-BITCH!!!” There was no forgetting. Wesley was Buffy's Watcher, officially at least. He wasn't going anywhere. In fact, Giles realized, he was going to have to ask that smug little twat for a ride to work.

“Bloody, buggering, demons from the depths of Hell!” he cursed more quietly, and more to the point. He wasn't just going to have to tolerate Wesley's presence in his library; if he was to be of any use to Buffy or to Mankind, he was going to have to work with that insufferable pillock. Closely, patiently, and for quite some time.

Of course, for that to happen, he needed to be a great deal calmer than he was, Giles reminded himself as he walked into his upstairs bathroom and began sorting out the the things he needed for a shave and a shower from the impossibly complex clutter of completely useless items that suddenly seemed to fill the room. At the moment, he was so filled with barely suppressed rage and frustration that he had to fight the urge to throw each and every unneeded item as it came under his hand.

He gripped a tiny glass jar of moisturizing lotion tightly. It fit in his hand like a smooth, rounded river stone. The moment popped like a bubble and dissipated in a spray of laughter as he imagined that tiny missile shattering against the mirror with a satisfying little explosion, cracking the glass. Imagine! Doing something so ridiculous in one's own home! Over a fool like Wesley Wyndom-Pryce!

Shaking his head, Giles hopped in the shower and got down to business, giving his body a quick but thorough scrubbing. As he lathered himself up for his shave, he was already planning what he would say to Wesley when he inevitably had to knock on his door and make the very obvious observation that with one car, one driver, and one destination between them, their only reasonable course of action was to travel together.

He had to take charge of the interaction from the very beginning, he decided firmly. He had to be calm, dignified and in control. Yes, Giles resolved, as he put on his undergarments and started downstairs to start the kettle boiling while he chose a fresh suit and finished getting dressed; above all he had to maintain his dignity.

As he walked into his kitchen, there Wesley sat, fully dressed, in a clean, pressed suit, spewing hot tea from his mouth the way no normal human being ever does outside of the comical scenes of films with names like 'This Can't be Love'. He followed that up by muttering, “Oh, Dear Lord,” in a way that made it very clear he felt Giles was the one violating that laws of decency by walking into his own damned kitchen less than fully dressed.

“You've got a spot on your tie,” Giles said coolly, mixing a cup of instant coffee with the water from the still steaming tea kettle. “You'd best run home and change it before it's time to go.”

He pulled Wesley's wrist to him and looked as his watch before the hand was pulled away, ignoring the younger man's stifled mutterings of indignation. “Bring the car round front in half an hour. We need to get working on what we can find out about the actual powers of that amulet before Buffy comes in to make her full report about a quarter to eight, as is her custom.” And with that he calmly left the room and went to get dressed, taking his coffee with him.

“Pillock,” Wesley muttered to himself as his half-naked colleague sauntered from the room after ordering him about like a servant. As though he thought he'd made some sort of point! He'd made a bloody ass of himself was what.

 _Just as I did last night_ , Wesley tried not to think. But there was no one to judge the merits of either accusation and nothing to do now but get on with it. Wesley finished his tea, swiped one of Rupert's ties from the coat closet, and went and fetched the car as instructed.

They rode to the school in chilly silence. Neither looked at the other any more than he could help. They'd been at their books more than an hour before Rupert finally broke the silence. First, as Wesley was pleased to note.

“This is most definitely genuine,” he declared with that irritating, self-important presumption of authority that Wesley had come to expect from him; holding up the amulet in one hand and a very respectable book, open to a full color illustration, in the other.

“You don't know that,” Wesley objected. “It could have been made to fit the illustration rather than the other way round.”

“Did you make it?” Rupert asked dryly, “because otherwise I'm at a loss to explain it, seeing as how this is the only extant copy of this book in the world.”

“The vampires could have made it after taking the actual amulet for themselves,” Wesley argued, hating Rupert's arrogance all the more for the growing realization that he was probably right. “Then they'd have had the original to work from.”

“What,” Rupert countered with caustic sarcasm, “between the time Buffy first encountered them night before last and when they fought her to several of their deaths for this one just last night? Seems like a great deal of trouble to go to over a useless article of 'sentimental value'.”

“Now listen here!” Wesley retorted, all aflutter with indignation, taking the amulet from Giles's outstretched hand. Presumably, he'd have planned a second half to that sentence before committing himself so far; but the relief with which he greeted the interruption of Buffy bouncing cheerfully into the library seemed to suggest otherwise.

“So,” she asked cheerfully, clearly in no real doubt, “Did we do good? Is that the mystical whatsit?”

“Without a doubt,” Giles answered without hesitation. Let Wesley choke on that. It wasn't as though he had any kind of a counter point to offer. He was just being contrary for the hell of it. Childish really, still clinging desperately to his view of himself as the wronged party in all that passed between them.

“Well... It looks authentic enough,” Wesley hedged, taking out a magnifying glass and peering through it as though he expected to find 'made in china' printed in tiny letters somewhere on the surface of the amulet. Even that much of an admission clearly galled him, Giles noted with quiet satisfaction. But the self-important little twit just couldn't let it go. “Of Course,” he burbled pointlessly, “there are test to be made before actual verification.”

The Slayer, to her credit, was having none of it. Instead she renewed her insistence that Wesley's information regarding the near extinction of the Eliminati had been wholly incorrect and that he therefore needed verify a good many other tings before worrying about phantom duplicates of Balthazar's amulet floating around.

She soon had Wesley on the defensive, however hard he pretended not to be. He tried to turn it around on her, implying that her lack of preparation was the issue rather than his lack of knowledge. But he only seemed to be giving her more material with witch to mock him. Giles hardly had to say a word. It was delightful. And, oh so richly deserved.

Too soon, Buffy had to rush off to class. By way of parting, she said nothing whatsoever to her official Watcher, only, “Giles, we need to talk.”

This elicited another verse of the same song Wesley had been singing since he'd invaded the library yesterday. “Buffy, I must ask you to remember that I am your Watcher. Anything you have to say about Slaying you will say to me. The only thing you need discuss with Mr. Giles is overdue book fees. Understood?” The smug idiotic look on his face! It was as though he actually expected her to accept that. As if he thought he had somehow triumphed.

“We'll talk,” Buffy said pointedly, clearly addressing Giles alone.

“Of course,” he replied evenly, suppressing a smile, feeling a bit smug himself.

“You're not helping,” Wesley fretted at him, an infantile pout threatening to replace his shattered smirk of authority.

“I know,” Giles replied, mock-sympathetic, “I feel just sick about it.” And without another word he left his witless and therefore speechless antagonist chewing on his consternation as he retreated to his private office to have a good long laugh.

 


	6. Wesley and Giles Are Getting Along Splendidly

The school day was three hours old when Giles heard a hesitant knock on his office door. He prayed it was a student, or a teacher, Snyder even. No such luck. “I thought perhaps a pot of tea?” Wesley inquired, weakly assaying a clam, pleasant, professional tone; his true emotional state showing through this paper-thin pretense. Anxious. Sad. Lonely. Pitiful. A stranger in a strange land. Out of his depth.

Silently cursing himself for a moment of compassion he was almost certain to regret, Giles unlocked the door and opened it just a crack. No eyes on Earth had ever been sadder, more longing or contrite. Giles knew better.

Wesley may have regretted the way matters had concluded (or rather had not concluded) last night. And no doubt he was unhappy with the state of his Watcher/Slayer relationships. But with this arrogant, temperamental novice Watcher none of that was likely to lead to apology, insight, or any lasting change in attitude or behavior.

“The kettle is in here, you see...” Wesley managed haltingly, when they had stood there much too long a moment. Gazing into each other's eyes. Wesley dropped his eyes blushing crimson. Not just from the embarrassment of using such a thin excuse for his half extended olive branch either. His eyes lighted on the front Rupert's trousers, clearly still longing to get his hands on what was inside.

It was so pathetic it should have been laughable, but somehow it wasn't quite. Especially to Giles, who suddenly realized that he too was blushing. Worse still, as much as it pained him to realize it, just for a moment, he had lapsed into imaging how good it would feel to have his cock in any man's hands (or ass, or mouth, for that matter) even Wesley's.

It's just been too long, Giles told himself, straightening his posture and almost physically pulling Wesley's gaze upward with his own. No need to go losing his head and climbing out on the same rotten branch once again. Wesley wasn't anything he really needed, just someone who happened to be there. On behalf of the Council. For Buffy's benefit. And Faith's. For the Slayers' sakes, they needed to put all this nonsense behind them and focus on the job at hand as all good Watchers must do.

“Please,” Giles said stiffly, forcing a polite smile as he opened the door wide, stepping backwards, indicating with one hand the general direction of the small sink and electric kettle, “help yourself.”

Wesley nodded at least as stiffly and made his hesitant way into the now suffocatingly small office. He closed the door. Rupert tried not to over interpret that. Particularly since he then made a beeline for the kettle, avoiding any further eye contact. Rupert let out an involuntary sigh of mild frustration and less mild regret. The two of them were never going to get any work done this way.

“What?” Wesley demanded, his back still turned, fussing with the kettle. He seemed poised to become very, very hostile at the slightest provocation; which made Rupert all the more annoyed, all the more prone to resuming hostilities himself. That was not what anyone involved in this bizarre little cadre of heros and scholars needed. Least of all the two sex starved social misfits pointlessly pretending not to notice one another's desire suffusing the stagnant air of this almost literal closet.

Giles reached for the door thinking he would open it. Instead, on sudden impulse, he locked it. In this tiny, quiet space, the sound was enough to get Wesley's attention. His whole body stiffened. Giles began to think that he had made another mistake, that he had just made everything worse.

But when Wesley turned to face him, there was nothing hostile in his expression. Only hope, apprehensiveness, and desire. Giles let out a much pleasanter sigh, only realizating how tense he had been when he felt his body relaxing.

“It occurs to me,” Giles murmured, with as much cool wit and sensuousity as he could manage with his heart hammering like mad, “that if we are going to work together we have got to get rid of this terribly distracting feeling of constant temptation between us.”

“Yes,” Wesley agreed eagerly, in that soft, breathless voice of his, all the while closing the short distance between them until they were standing face to face, close enough to feel one another's hot breath on their lips. “In the only way possible.” He smiled warmly, gratefully; happy to make the connection to the Wilde quote Giles was obviously referencing.

And that was it. Here they were. Distance closed. They shared one hungry kiss and then another. Wesley made a noise between a moan and a whine. Giles was silent but for his deep, rapid breathing.

Wesley took one very slight step back and began to undress as quickly as humanly possible, his fingers flying from button to button. Giles silently followed suit, tossing his trademark tweeds all over the desk and floor. Wesley left his clothes in a similar, overlapping heap. No one spoke of hanging or folding anything. No one spoke at all. They didn't dare. Too much was at stake to blunder into error now.

As he looked upon Rupert's naked body for the first time, Wesley had to remind himself to breathe. The lean, hard, moderately well-defined muscle that covered his entire frame, was not surprising, given his occupation, but it was beautiful to behold. Especially knowing, as Wesley did, that his own muscle tone was very slightly better, as Rupert could now well see.

But in one area, there could be no real comparison. Wesley's cock, now almost fully erect, was nearly as long as as Rupert's half hard member. But, as anyone who'd ever been really fucked knew, length paled in importance to girth. In that dimension, Rupert was far and away the bigger man. Wesley might have been jealous, if he hadn't been so ecstatic. After all, he was the one who was going to be at the business end of that impressive appendage. That much had been established before he'd ever left London. It was difficult to feel anything but grateful for that.

Rupert's body was covered thinly but evenly with hair. Like a man's should be. Wesley liked that, even though he preferred to be (and was) waxed smooth himself. A fact which Rupert seemed to appreciate as he reached out a hand to gently caress his hip, waist, buttocks and chest.

Wesley's hand actually trembled as he reached out to take hold of Rupert's magnificent cock. The warm, pulsing, suddenly much harder rod of flesh in his hand felt satisfying, but Wesley still found it hard to relax. He was terrified of moving too fast, even under these circumstances, in which it had been made fairly explicit that they were to do whatever they liked to each other. He was still afraid that somehow he would mess it up.

But he soon felt Rupert's reciprocal hand around his own cock, squeezing and rubbing it approvingly. Rupert caught his eye and they both smiled with affable embarrassment, standing there, fact to face, holding one another like curious children, almost too joyfully terrified to move. Their cocks, each still held in one another's hand, were in glancing contact with each other, creating a feeling of sparks, of some energy far gentler and far more powerful than electricity, leaping and dancing between them.

Suddenly they were kissing again, and stroking each other frantically, seeking their pleasure with a certainty that was in no way childlike. Both of them were fully erect now, standing up like dogs begging on their hind legs, and just as grateful to be petted. Wesley felt reassured and uneasy at the same time. He could stroke with the best of them, but the kissing was less familiar territory.

Rupert's kiss was so hungry, so certain, so passionate, so gratifying. It made his soul feel weak in the knees, if souls had knees. It also made him doubt himself. Wesley never felt quite sure he knew what he was doing in that area. Women were too polite to tell you if you weren't doing things properly and very few of the men he'd been with had ever wanted to kiss him. Not on the face at any rate.

In fact, Wesley realized, over the last several days he'd probably kissed Rupert more than all of the other men put together. For the first time, he was beginning to understand why love songs and romantic movies made such a fuss about kissing. It satisfied a part of him that had everything and nothing to do with sex. Far more than the chastely affectionate kisses of his fiance (or the desperate but dispassionate shagging that went on in the back rooms of the clubs he'd frequented in London) ever could.

Rupert had taken his hand off of Wesley's cock now and grabbed him firmly by the buttocks with both hands pulling him close in a way that made it both impossible and unnecessary to keep manually stroking one another, their groins grinding against on each other instead, maximizing the direct, energetic contact of their two penises.

Without meaning to speak at all, Wesley moaned against Rupert's throat, “If you don't put that cock inside me right now I shall die!”

Rupert suppressed a chuckle, which Wesley tried not to resent. Even he knew his diction was too terribly proper in this context. It was flaw. One of many. That didn't matter right now. Rupert's eyes were shining with joyful anticipation. He wanted this coupling at least as desperately as Wesley did. Wanted _him_ , more desperately than anyone ever had.

“Oh damn,” Rupert cursed, suddenly disappointed, or possibly cross. Wesley was stabbed by the sharp and terrible fear of rejection. Of humiliation. Of all of this still being some terrible joke at his expense after all. God! He would kill him if that was what this was! He would throttle him with his bare hands. There was only so much humiliation one man could take.

Rupert's eyes softened with regret. “I don't have any condoms here,” he apologized. “Or any lubricants. I do generally try to keep my private life and my professional life separate.”

Was that all?!? Wesley could have laughed out loud with relief. “I have both in my attache case,” he replied just a bit smugly, feeling very pleased with himself indeed. Then, remembering, slightly less pleased, “It's behind the circulation desk. One of us is going to have to get dressed and go after it.”

Rupert sighed. Wesley understood. It seemed the most onerous, terrible, burdensome delay in the history of the world. It was a great leap backward, towards starting over from the beginning. “Shall we draw straws?” Rupert asked with absurd gravity, trying to find the humor in the situation. Already his erection was waning.

Still, Wesley had some hope that even this great obstacle could be overcome. Until he heard a voice from the library calling, “Hey, Watcher Guys! Whose watching the library?”

It was the Slayer. The Actual Slayer. Or at any rate the Current Slayer, according to proper rules of succession. Difficult one. Faith.

 


	7. Walk-in Closet

“With you in a moment!” Wesley shouted, his voice full of panic and guilt, “Just researching in here!” Preempting the far calmer and less suspicious words to the same effect that had been mere seconds from rolling off of the senior Watcher's tongue.

“Jolly Good,” Giles muttered sarcastically as he tried to quickly and calmly locate and reassemble the bits and pieces of his tweed suit and his professional dignity. He was hampered somewhat in this task by Wesley blindly rushing about him, arms all but literally flailing at his sides, trampling, quite literally, more than once over the same toes; as he tried to do more or less the same thing, minus the calm and dignity.

When Wesley elbowed his green-shaded desk lamp and sent it crashing to the floor, Rupert cursed quietly under his breath. Why should be even be surprised? It was inevitable really. There was no room in his tiny office for all this swirling about.

And of course, the high, almost girlish shriek that the young fool let out didn't help matters any where Faith was concerned, quite the opposite. In an instant, before either Watcher could say a word to deter her, Faith had turned the knob as easily as if it had not been locked and come barreling through the door, stake in hand. Ready for a fight.

It seemed to take her a moment to process what she saw before her. There were no monsters in this closet. Just two men frozen in the act of frantically trying to dress themselves and thereby to avoid being exposed in more ways than one. And failing at it, in more ways than one.

At least Giles had managed to get his trousers on and zipped. He was still shirtless, however. His unfashionably hairy chest was acutely exposed to view and thus, potentially, to judgment. Add that to the fact that Wesley was in his shirt and pants, having not yet located his trousers, and it was pretty difficult to image any alternate activity that the two of them could have possibly been engaging in.

Faith blinked a few times, breathed a sigh of relief, and then broke into a smile that gave way to a quiet but sincere laugh, complete with the gentle head-shaking and twinkling eyes that made Faith's laugh her own. Innocent. Childlike. Normally her laughter was infectious, but the circumstances were something of an inoculation in this particular instance. Especially when she failed to stop laughing after a decent interval but continued, oblivious the the mood of the room, as children will do.

Wesley's face was crimson and the set of his jaw was particularly tight as embarrassment transitioned seamlessly into anger. “Faith,” he began, attempting a calmly authoritative tone of voice, which was no more successful than his dismal attempt to look her squarely in the eye. She finally managed to stop laughing, but her smile became more of a smirk. “Faith,” he tried again, and for a second time failed to come up with anything more to say than that. He was too angry, too frustrated, too humiliated to put thoughts into words.

“Erm, yes, Faith,” Mr. Giles chimed in, ready as ever to show him up in even the smallest thing, “please excuse us another moment.” He nodded towards the door, clearly meaning she should take several steps backward and close the door between them.

Of course, she didn't take the hint. “Hey, no problem guys,” she answered, still clearly amused, arms crossed over her chest. “Take all the time you need. Get your rainbow on. I just want to know where I can find Buffy.”

Now it was Mr. Giles' turn to be tongue tied. “We're not—that is to say—alright, yes clearly, but we do need a moment—not—not to...! We just need a moment to get dressed, if you don't mind.” He capped off all of this stammering by once again indicating to the Slayer the door that needed to be closed, with her on the other side of it.

Under other circumstances, Wesley might have had a good laugh at his oh so superior colleague's struggle to fight his way to the end of a sentence. But things were as they were. Both men, both Watchers, were caught in the same set of distinctly unamusing circumstances. None of which was going to improve the ability of either or both of them to command the respect and obedience of their unruly charges, especially Faith, who when push came to shove, was the one who really counted.

The Slayer! The Slayer of all people! Walking in on them here. Like this. Witnessing their indecency! Wesley stood paralyzed by indecision, not knowing if standing here half dressed was a greater or lesser indignity than actually dressing in front of her; silently willing her to close the door.

Faith just smiled and shook her head again. “Look whatever, guys,” she offered in what she appeared to think was a conciliatory tone, “It's all five-by-five in my book. Maybe it's a boarding school thing; maybe not. Hey, who am I to judge, right? I can even never-saw-it if you want, whatever. I just want Buffy.”

It might have been a totally innocent statement. Except for the fact that Faith was now as frozen as the rest of them and all of the color had drained from her face. Giles raised an eyebrow more or less automatically but successfully suppressed a chuckle when he saw how quickly her pallor was replaced by a blush of deep crimson and a defensive, resentfully embarrassed posture and expression.

“Don't look at me like that!” she almost but not quite shouted. “You're the ones in here doing the deed in the fucking library in the middle of the goddamned school day! And you're supposed to be a fucking teacher, standing there with no shirt on, so you can just keep your snotty eyebrow waving to yourself!”

Wesley was beyond tongue tied at this point. It felt as if he were choking on his own tongue, as if he might choke to death on it. Which still might have been preferable to standing here like this, half naked, in a tiny but by no means inaccessible back room of an American public school with an equally unclad faculty member and an underage girl squawking loudly enough that she might attract the attention of the school administration (and thereby the local police and eventually the Council, Wesley's father, Wesley's fiancé, and Wesley's fiancé's father) at any moment.

Good lord! How could Mr. Giles remain so calm! “Faith,” he said in a firm, commanding and at the same time somehow reassuring and supportive voice (like a mother's voice, but manly), “Buffy is in Ms. Taggart's room taking, I believe, a chemistry test. So whatever you want with her will just have to wait until lunchtime. Now please, for the love of God, if not for my sake but only to avoid reducing poor Wesley to tears, step out of my office and close the door.”

Wesley felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. He'd been jeered at and called everything on the continuum from a weakling to a woman countless times, by countless people of all sorts and stations, for at least twenty-five years that he could remember. But some how, none of that felt quite as harsh as Mr. Giles' casual presumption that he hadn't any more self respect than to stand by and be the butt of such a comment without taking offense.

He might have said so, might have pulled on his trousers and stormed out. If not for the fact that Rupert had pushed the door shut the moment Faith was over the threshold, unable to bear having it open one second longer, and was now pressed against it, holding onto it as if he needed it's support to stay on his feet. Or perhaps as if he needed to physically hold it closed for a while in order to regain his sense of security. At the same time, he was physically shaking and looking very near tears himself.


	8. A Contradiction in Terms

“Are you alright?” Wesley ventured, after a long moment, not sure what else to say.

“We can't go on like this,” Mr. Giles all but gasped between deep, ragged breaths. “We have to put an end to this,” he went on earnestly, urgently. “Before, it distracts us at the wrong moment and gets someone killed.” After a scant moment's thought he added, “Or everyone killed.”

“Agreed,” Wesley managed to say in a small, breathless voice. He tried unsuccessfully to keep that thin, plaintive note of disappointment out of it. To deny that, in truth, he was less than half sure that he actually did agree. Denying one's personal desires for the sake of the Slayer and the world was all well and good. It was part of the job of being a Watcher. It was most of the job, in fact. But how the devil was continuing to nurse this unacted desire between them going to reduce the level of distraction arising in the course of their already tense working relationship?

“Then there is only one thing to do,” Rupert announced resolutely. Seeming much calmer now, indeed, one might even say determined; he got more fully to his feet from his leaning position against the door. “Toss me my shirt,” he ordered casually, pointing to the garment which was lying very near Wesley's feet.

Even as he did as he had been told, Wesley opened his mouth to object, to express his offense at being ordered about like a servant. Mercifully, Mr. Giles continued speaking, putting the rest of his plan into words before Wesley could stick his foot in his mouth yet again. “Right then,” he said crisply as he hurriedly donned his shirt and did up most of the buttons, “I'll just go lock up and grab your attache case. Then I am going to shag you within an inch of your life. That ought to get this nonsense out of our systems.”

And with that, leaving Wesley to stand there with his mouth open in amazement, Rupert Giles marched out the door into the greater library, pushing it to behind him. On the other side he allowed himself one small, smug smile of triumph, which curled itself into a wry smile of scandalous anticipation.

He firmly believed that this situation with Wesley would quickly burn itself out once the fire got going properly. It was just a matter of scratching the itch. Which was a terrible analogy, he realized, with a very slight sense of misgivings that were possible to be had if he had been willing to entertain them.

In truth, scratching an itch often made it worse instead of better. Often enough, the same was also true of an infatuation. But he had to believe that this would not be one of those times. To begin with, the alternative was unthinkable. Besides that, Wesley seemed like someone it would be quite easy to get enough of. If not for his smoldering good looks, his lean, firm body, his lilting yet husky voice, and their all consuming mutual desperation; Giles frankly presumed they would have had more than enough of each other already.

By the time he had thoroughly searched every nook and cranny of the labyrinth of of shelves, cabinets, and cubbyholes behind, in, under, and around the circulation desk without seeing a solitary sign of anything resembling an attache case; Rupert began to feel, once again, that he might have had more than enough of Wesley already. Except that he hadn't. And so he kept looking.

He was in the midst of ransacking the shelves and cabinets inside the book cage when he heard Wesley call from the office. His voice was full of anxiety, impatience, and a very unconvincing facsimile of polite, cheerful professionalism. “I say, Mr. Giles, are you having any luck finding those books we are going to need to sort through?”

“No,” Giles called back shortly. “I am not, because it is not behind the circulation desk or anywhere remotely near it.”

“It _is_ behind the circulation desk,” Wesley called back, sounding petulant again. “I put it there this morning. You will just have to look harder. Oh, and, incidentally,” he added in that stealth-snide, infuriatingly instructive tone of his, “'remotely near' is a rather obvious contradiction in terms.”

“I'd be more than happy to let you come have a look for yourself,” Giles retorted saccharine sweet. He was far and away Wesley's superior at being politely hostile, just as he was in most things, and they both knew it.

There was an appreciable pause. Counter productive though it was to both his short and long term goals for their association, Giles could not help but enjoy the fact that he had shut Wesley's fool mouth, if only for a moment. But his enjoyment on that score was short lived. Because when Wesley finally found his tongue he said, in a voice straining to hide both frustration and embarrassment, “I'd be happy to. However, I am having a bit of trouble finding something myself, and I don't feel comfortable coming out without it.”

“Damn,” Giles cursed quietly. His growing aggravation didn't even leave room for an amused smile at Wesley's unfortunate phrasing. It was obvious the ninny had lost some article of clothing without which it would have been indecent to appear in public. “I'll be right there,” he called aloud, trying not to sound too put out. Honestly though, it was like dealing with a child.

“Yes, thank you. That would be most appreciated,” Wesley answered in a brittle, haughty tone that did not sound appreciative at all.

And he would have been right there, honestly. If the sound of a sharp, censorious, disgusted “Mr. Giles!” had not caught him off guard and caused him to half stand up into the edge of a very solid hard-wood shelf.

 


	9. A Battle of Wits with an Unarmed Man

“Damn-bloody-fucking-hell!” Giles curse thoughtlessly. His startlement at the sudden, unpleasant, and proximate appearance of Principal Snider tapered seamlessly into the even more jarring and undignified experience of being thumped very sharply on the head through no fault but his own. It took him a dizzy moment or two and a mouth full of snide remarks from the man himself to remember that in his particular profession, in this particular place and time, the mere act of cursing was arguably misconduct in it's own right.

And then it began to sink in that Snyder had come here to angrily confront him about _something_ before any of this uttering of foul language or headbutting books shelves had ever happened. Giles made more of an effort to listen to the specifics of what Das Principal was saying despite the thumping inside his skull and the distracting fear that Snyder might at some point wish to see the inside of his office.

Speaking of... “It has come to my attention,” Snyder snarled, “that over the last several days there has been an unauthorized visitor in my school, camped out in the library day and night, who has not checked in at the office per school rules and school-board regulations and as far as I can tell has no business on this campus.”

Rupert's face was a mask of patient attention and calm, professional concern. His brain was in motion; however, trying to find the best approach to take. Denial was, of course, ludicrous. Wesley _had_ been all but literally camped out in the library these past two days, and he clearly had no intention to change this habit in the foreseeable future. Besides, a denial might have prompted a search. A frank admission would defuse that possibility.

That really only left two possible routs for Giles to take. Either he could confess that his friend (or possibly cousin?) had been hanging round a bit too much (possibly helping him sort or index something?) and assure Snyder that it would not happen again. Or he could make up a plausible reason why Wesley ought to be allowed to occupy the library all day if he liked.

The first possibility was certainly temping. In the first place, it would be easier, at least in terms of satisfying Snyder. It was manifestly more likely that there would be a good reason for a grown man who was neither a teacher nor a parent to hang around a high-school library for a few days than for the rest of the school year. Also, it would have been nice to have Wesley literally anywhere else all day, every day, for the rest of their natural lives.

The problem was, you couldn't keep a Watcher away from his Slayer. It wouldn't be tolerated. If the Counsel's man was not allowed on school property then, one way or another, they would arrange for Buffy not to be their either, except on those rare occasions upon which she needed to be physically present at the very sight of the Hellmouth. If he was very, very lucky, they might let him stay and keep an eye on if for her. Realistically, they'd probably jerk his bloody Green Card.

With a strong current of regret running deep beneath the placid surface of his professional demeanor, Giles knitted his brow and favored Snyder with a baffled expression that could have won an Oscar if he did say so himself. “I can't imagine what you mean,” he said. “Apart from the student's, there's been no one here but me and Wesley.”

“Wesley?” Snyder demanded, “Who's Wesley?”

Giles looked at Snyder as if he'd grown a second head. “What do you mean, 'who's Wesley'? Wesley Wyndom-Pryce, the graduate student.”

Snyder's eyes narrowed in suspicion, “What graduate student? Nobody told me anything about a graduate student.”

Giles decided to look put-upon as well as surprised, playing it by ear. “You must be joking!” he declared. “How could you not—You had to write a grant to get him, from what I understand. Surely that must have made some impression on you.”

This remark had the effect it was calculated to have. Snyder balled his hands into fists at his sides and muttered curses and recrimination under his breath at people who was not present and in some cases not even alive.

The Principal hated writing grants and frankly anything that smacked of research or any such academic goings on. Which was why he always delegated those duties entirely to the assistant principal. They were on their third one of those already this school year, one having bled to death through the neck and another having run screaming for the hills, leaving precious little documentation behind.

If a grant had been written, that was a done deal. The only way to undo it was to give the money back, and it was contrary to Snyder's nature (or that of any head teacher really) to do a thing like that. “Well... Tell him he'd better be at the next faculty meeting then,” Snyder blustered by way of parting. “They're mandatory! Everyone at this school answers to me; I don't care where their checks come from.”

And with that the enemy retreated from the field. Game. Set. Match.

 


	10. The Lost Trousers of Fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the reason the rating on this has been bumped up from Mature to Explicit. You have been warned.

The second Snyder was gone, Giles marched straight to his office, slamming the door open and slamming it shut again as he entered in a swirl of fury. He was dimly aware that less that half of his rage and frustration ought properly to be aimed at the man before him, but Wesley was just so bloody present, and shaken, and stammering, and filled to the brim with is own unwarranted hostility. He made it difficult not to lash out at him.

And so, Giles proceeded to do exactly that. Wesley was fully dressed except for his trousers and shoes making the exact nature of his clothing mishap crystal clear. “How the devil do you loose something as large as a pair of trousers in a room this size!” Giles demanded. "It's practically a bloody cupboard!”

“Don't you think I know that?” Wesley countered, his voice tight with quiet frustration. Then his voice began to gain both speed and volume. “I've looked on the floor, on the couch, on the desk, under the desk, I—” As his voice reached a high, whining pitch of near panic, Wesley stopped abruptly. There were tears shining in his eyes. Giles was hard put to say whether this display of emotion (over a garment for God's sake) was more deserving of pity or contempt, but he certainly felt both, and oddly both dampened his anger as well as his desire.

“Look,” he offered patiently, encouraging a calmer tone by example, “We just have to search systematically, that's all. You start by the far wall and I will start by the door and we will work are way back towards the middle of the room. We just have to literally look everywhere. And fortunately,” he added, with just a touch of good-natured jest, “this is just the right size room for doing that.”

Wesley said nothing in response, but turned face to his assigned wall and started running his fingers along the spines of volumes on the full to groaning bookshelves, as though his trousers might somehow have concealed themselves there. Giles suppressed a sigh. Evidently Wesley was no better at searching a physical space than he was at searching volumes of lore and prophesy. Just one more part of the job that Giles would have to do for him.

Wesley suppressed a sigh of his own. Rupert wasn't listening to him. He never did. That was the trouble. He wasn't going to find his missing article of clothing lying on the floor or draped over the arm of something. If it had been that easy he would have found it already. While he thought about the problem, Wesley ran his fingers along the spines of several of the more interesting books in front of him, distracting his mind in order to relax it.

The trousers had to have gotten stuck inside or under something that wasn't apparent to the naked eye of the casual observer, or apparently the diligent searcher either, Wesley decided. But there was no use arguing about it with Mr. Giles. Let him do his wall to wall search of places that had been search already. Wesley kept caressing the spines of the ancient books, kept thinking.

“Ah ha,” Giles said with something like a smirk of triumph in his voice. Wesley turned around, poise to be relieved and grateful. But Mr. Giles was not holding an article of clothing out for his inspection as Wesley had assumed. Instead, he was peering down into one on his desk drawers. Evidently, he had meant his admonishment to look _everywhere_ quite literally indeed.

“You can't have found them in there,” Wesley objected testily. “It isn't as though they opened the drawer and crawled in on their own.”

“Yes,” Giles agreed, still sounding confoundedly amused. “Those would be unusual trousers indeed, though I can't say I've never met the like. But no, I haven't found them. I did, however, find this.” With that, Mr. Giles reached into the drawer and retrieved an object which he proudly displayed for Wesley's inspection. It was a round, squat whitish container with a bright red lid and lettering on the front announcing it's unsurpassed effectiveness in 'nourishing' dry, sensitive skin without irritation.

Wesley felt a snide comment rising in his throat. Something about Mr. Giles having no room to chide him when it came to staying on task. Or perhaps some expression of disbelief or distaste at the thought that he could still be turned on, still hoping for sex under these circumstances. But at the same time, every cell of his skin was singing and nearly vibrating with the hope of being touch by this man's hands or any other part of him. His cock and balls were suddenly awake and alert and his ass was whimpering to be penetrated. And so, when he opened his mouth, not yet knowing what he meant to say, he breathed out all in one ragged breath, “Oh thank God! I was starting to think we'd never manage to make this happen!”

The look of triumph on Rupert's face somehow grew more tender and more aggressive at the same time. His green eyes burned with inexpressible passion. He crossed the tiny room in two long strides, sill holding the little jar of skin cream in his palm. He grabbed the back of Wesley's head with his free hand, tangling his finger in his hair and pulled him, unresistant, into the longest, deepest, hungriest kiss that Wesley had ever experienced.

The kiss left them both gasping, and Wesley a little dizzy, or giddy was the better word perhaps. As he recovered, he found that his hands were already on Rupert's body, sliding purposefully over his hard chest and somewhat softer abdomen in the direction of glorious cock. Rupert brushed Wesley's caresses aside and, with no more response to his look of protest that a toothy grin, he gripped Wesley by the hips and spun him around so that he was now standing with his ass to Rupert facing the small leather couch.

“Bend forward,” Rupert instructed, still breathing heavily, “Brace your hands on the back of it.” Wesley did as he was told and found himself leaning at the perfect height and angle to give his partner maximal access to his posterior. The perfection of this position was clearly not lost on Mr. Giles, who didn't waste a moment before taking full advantage of it.

Rupert gently tugged Wesley's pants loose from his bony hips and sent them fluttering down around his ankles. He held Wesley's cheeks in his hands, squeezed them, released them against his face and kissed them each in turn. As his strong, firm hands reached down between Wesley's thighs and began to gently, almost playfully squeeze his balls and rub his now fully erect cock, Rupert's tongue laved at the crack of his ass and the little puckered opening of his rectum.

“Oh good Lord!” Wesley breathed, somewhere between sighing an crying out, “Please, please Mr. Giles, do it now. Otherwise I'm just going to come and it will be too late again.”

“Oh no you don't,” Mr. Giles murmured half seriously, taking his hands from Wesley's genitals and his mouth from his ass. Wesley waited like a statue, almost not daring to breath lest he do something to derail matters once again. He stood there, leaning forward, his bare ass exposed beneath his shirttail, his heart thumping madly, until at last he heard the sound of Mr. Giles unzipping his own trousers.

Wesley felt the sharp, cooling sensation of the cold skin cream against his anus and then inside his rectum, together with one gently exploring finger. The cream warmed rapidly to body temperature and now felt nothing so much as gloriously slippery. Mr. Giles made low, throaty sound of appreciation as his questing digit took the measure of that tight space and his other hand cupped Wesley's scrotum once again.

Wesley breathed in and out deeply, enjoying the sensation of finally having a mans flesh moving inside him again after days that had seemed like months of abstinence. A man's bare flesh, skin to skin. Which was usual with fingers, obviously, but it did call to mind the fact that they had only found half of the supplies they had been looking for. When Rupert's cock penetrated him, it too would be bare, flesh to flesh, as it moved inside him.

Wesley supposed he should have felt apprehensive about the prospect of doing without a condom. It was reckless. One could die from such behavior. Many people had. But to the depths of his soul he longed to feel Rupert inside of him, to truly feel him, flesh to flesh, to feel his semen spewing forth in that tight, hot darkness, to carry it inside him afterward, if only for a few hours.

At any rate, the time to speak of that or any other objection to their union was soon passed. Wesley felt Rupert's finger withdraw, and the hand that had been caressing his balls now held him firmly by the hip. He felt the head of Rupert's penis, slicked with it's own generous coating of cool cream, rub against his anus for a moment before the whole of that hot, hard, uncompromising shaft plunged into him with the certainty and force of a medieval crusader driving the point of his sword into the hart of the infidel. And if this had been truly what such a death had felt like, Wesley would have wished to be martyred every day and twice on Sunday.

Rupert held Wesley by both hips now, held him sill while he enjoyed the sensation of being sheathed up to his hilt in the younger man's snug but accommodating ass. His cock throbbed. It wanted desperately to move inside of Wesley, to madly stroke and thrust its way to orgasm. But he wanted to prolong the moment of anticipation just a bit longer, and once he began trusting in earnest, he was quite certain he would not be able to control himself in any sense.

Instead, he stood there a moment longer, almost a moment longer than he could endure, savoring a feeling he had forgotten to miss in the nearly twenty years since he had last felt it, the feeling of having his bare cock inside another human being without a barrier of latex and caution between them. This was a true union, two becoming one flesh as God intended, and damn the consequences.

“Please, please,” Wesley begged, and there was no doubt of what we wanted, what he needed, almost as desperately as Giles did. “Please,” he continued, even as Rupert relented and began to move first slowly and then more quickly, more rhythmicly inside him, “Please, Mr. Giles, fuck me, fuck me harder. Come inside me before I die of desire!”

With that, Rupert gave up all pretense of control and began trusting madly, seeking his own release and trusting Wesley to manage his own if anything more than wild animal rutting was required to accomplish it. Both men cried out at the same moment, the ecstatic agony of maximal arousal giving way to the bliss of release for both of them as Giles emptied his warm spurting semen into Wesley's bowels and Wesley sprayed his on across the leather couch.

If the couch was ruined, Giles decided as he stood there, his spent cock still buried deep inside Wesley, trying to catch his breath, it was an acceptable loss. “Mr. Giles,” Wesley gasped, “That was... that was...” but he seemed to have more than half lost the power of human speech. Though not the ability to be absurdly polite, regardless of the circumstances.

Rupert's heart was filled with a sudden, almost overwhelming feeling of tenderness and affection towards Wesley. Which of course awakened in him the very British need to undercut the emotional depth of the moment with humor. “Wesley,” he teased, his own breathing still not quite returned to normal, “I think, just this once, since my cock is actually inside you, it might be okay if you were to call me Rupert.”

Wesley laughed, a ragged rattling relieved laugh. Giles stood up more fully and withdrew at last, putting his cock away and fastening up his clothes. He was glad, he supposed, that Wesley had laughed at his little joke, but he couldn't understand why he was still laughing, nearly shaking with laughter in fact, as he righted himself and pulled his pants up from around his ankles. Until Wesley reached under the couch and retrieved his trousers, which had evidently been pinned behind it, obscured by shadow, until a vigorous, repeated shaking of the couch had jarred them loose.


	11. This Doesn't Change Anything

“Well, then,” Giles said, straightening his tie and clearing his throat several times as he watched Wesley pull on his trousers, trying to get himself back into a professional state of mind, ready to face the rest of the still young workday, grinning helplessly anyway. “I suppose I'll just go out first and you wait a couple of minutes?”

He'd meant that as a joke, but evidently Wesley was taking it seriously, nodding gratefully. “That seems best,” he agreed quite earnestly. He was so adorable in that moment, Giles couldn't help but smile.

At Wesley's bemused expression, Giles leaned down and kissed him once more. Just a quick peck on the lips. It seemed perfectly natural. Wesley colored very deeply; however, and seemed to be trying to suppress a (still very bemused) smile of his own.

And that was that. Giles walked out into the library. Feeling at once very clever and very foolish.

All things considered, he had just done a very stupid thing. Probably in more ways than one. But getting away with it, in this of all, places, seemed like a delightful joke on both Snyder and those in the Council who would profess to be shocked by such behavior. Until it became painfully evident that he hadn't entirely gotten a way with it.

“I didn't hear anything!” Xander announced emphatically as their eyes met over the fat volume of prophesy he was pretending to have been reading all along. The pretense might have been slightly more effective if he had taken a split second to make sure the book was right side up. Or if he had had sense enough to keep his damned mouth shut.

Giles gave Xander the incredulous look he deserved, trying (with limited success) not to look embarrassed or angry at the same time. He couldn't think of anything like a direct response to the boy's palpably false declaration that would have passed for appropriate or civil let alone dignified or professional. So instead he said, “Can I help you with something?”

Evidently, even that was too near the subject of the young man's thoughts on what he'd clearly just heard. The boys _ears_ turned red. It was appalling. “What—I—Oh!” Xander fumbled, unprecedentedly speechless for a moment. Then he recovered himself. “Buffy!” he announced triumphantly, like a quiz show contestant who had suddenly snatched the winning answer out of the aether.

Giles stared, waiting for him to continue. “Yes?” he prompted when Xander's pause had gone on for far too long, raising an impatient eyebrow.

“And Faith,” Xander continued, then halted again. It was almost as if he were literally afraid of completing a sentence. A horrible thought struck Giles, one that filled him so full of trepidation that, for a moment, he quite forgot to feel embarrassed or annoyed.

“Yes?” he prompted again. The boy looked pained. “I'm not going to shoot the messenger,” he said finally, getting a bit impatient again in spite of himself. “Just, out with it, alright?”

Xander took a deep breath and dove in, seeming relieved to unburden himself at last. “Buffy skipped out on the big Chem test to go kill stuff with Faith, and Willow's just about having a frothing fit over it. She'd be here herself only we have—oh, um—she has World History, so I ca—I'm here instead.”

Oh Dear Lord! Giles sighed internally, cheeks burning. Did the fool child have to put such a fine point on what it was exactly that he 'hadn't heard'? But that wasn't important now, Giles reminded himself forcefully. What mattered, first and foremost, was that his two Slayers were out on a reckless, unplanned mission that they had deliberately chosen to keep from their Watcher/Watchers despite having had a spectacularly clear opportunity to have told them about it.

And though it had clearly been at Faith's instigation, Xander confirmed how willingly Buffy had gone along. This was beyond insubordination. It was tumbling past rebellion down a slippery slope that could land the Slayers, the Council, and all who depended upon them in a sunless morass of deadly, counterproductive internal conflict, to the benefit of no one but the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness, starting with this demon Balthazar, who Wesley was still so keen to ignore.

Giles absentmindedly shewed Xander off to class, as was his duty to the State of California, pretty sure he had remembered to drop a word or two of thanks in there somewhere. Too late, he wished that he had remembered to say something about the need for discretion. One would have thought that it went without saying, but this was Xander Harris after all. Discretion was not his strong suit. And though a word to the wise might be enough, Xander usually needed to see a diagram.

When Wesley finally emerged (a maddening quarter hour later) and heard this latest bit of news of his wayward Slayers, he did not take it well. After the third of fourth iteration of 'whatever shall we do', laced with traces of 'how could you let this happen', Giles had had enough. He was beginning to remember why he'd been (ineffectually) resisting getting entangled with Wesley since the moment he had met him.

“Look, you're the one responsible for them,” Giles pointed out, “you've made that plain enough.”

Wesley heaved a deep sigh. “So we're back to all that again are we?” he all but sneered. “That was a short detente!” That was more than a bit much considering Wesley was the one who had insisted upon making a point of his official status and authority at every turn, and that he had been equally vehement about their physical relationship having nothing whatever to do with there work; and Giles said so.

They continued in the same vein for the better part of an hour until Wesley finally declared, in a tone that suggested absolute confidence that he was the one in the position to be giving orders, “Clearly, we simply have to go and find them!”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Giles scoffed. “Granted their behavior in this instance is reckless and unacceptable, but knowing those two, if they've gone looking for trouble, then trouble is going to be very very sorry. We should wait here and have it out with them when they get back, not wander off in the vain hopes of stumbling across them only to get in their way in battle. Besides,” he added, having just now realized the fact, “ _We_ can't go anywhere, I'm stuck here until 4:30.”

Wesley was quiet for a moment. Then he conspicuously drew himself up to his full height, making a show of stowing his emotions and battening down his dignity, as if he were performing in some sort of dreadful pantomime. Steepling his fingers in a way that no one ever really does, he pronounced, in a tone that wanted to be firm and authoritative, but frankly came out both petulant and combative, “Fine. I shall go and fetch them myself.”

Wesley was halfway to the door when Giles asked, “And what will you do if you run into Balthazar and six or seven of the Eliminati?”

Wesley scoffed openly. “Mr. Giles,” he explained, his nose so far up in the air that he looked as though he were trying to kiss Saint Peter's ass, “Need I remind you that, even assuming for the sake of argument that Balthazar still lives and the Eliminati with him, according to all the relevant sources he is no more capable of walking abroad in daylight than they are. And, in case it has escaped your notice, the sun is shining bright and will be for several more hours.”

“Mmm, no doubt,” Giles 'agreed' acerbically. “But if I were going out looking for two Slayers on the hunt, and I actually intended to find them, I'd be looking in places where the sun doesn't shine.”

Wesley's expression hardened, the very fact that Giles had a point seemed to make him all the more determined to dig in his heals. “Fortunately,” he said crisply, striding back towards the reading table where Giles stood, “You are not the one looking, because you are not their Watcher. I am.” He reached over to the table and picked up Balthazar's amulet. “Which reminds me,” he added, “I'll be taking this, as it would not be appropriate to leave it in the hands of a non-Watcher.”

Wesley dropped the amulet into his inside coat pocket. Giles opened his mouth to object, but at that moment a gaggle of student's arrived en masse from Mrs. Miller's Honors English class with instructions to do 'independent research' that would in fact be entirely dependent on his assistance. He glared at Wesley, but what could he say without sounding like a madman in front of the children? He could have told the fool to be careful, but honestly, what would be the point?

 


	12. We Aren't Happy to See Old Friends?

For the first couple of hours, Giles expected to hear from Wesley at any moment, probably to the effect that he had failed to find his two incorrigible Slayers and was on his way back to the library with his tail between his legs to sulk and refrain from apologizing. But as morning gave way to afternoon, he began to worry that he would instead be hearing from Buffy at any moment that Wesley had found them in the midst of some minor battle, only to get in the way and get himself killed.

The prospect of losing the young Watcher in battle scared Giles more than he liked to admit, even to himself. It was like a band tightening around his heart, visceral and shocking. He could have told himself that he simply felt responsible to and for his new comrade in arms as a fellow Watcher or even as a fellow human being. But he knew there was more to it than that.

It wasn't as though he wanted to go out and buy the bloody fool a diamond ring or some such thing; but he suddenly found that he had gotten much more attached to Wesley during their still very short acquaintance than he'd realized when it was happening. Sex tended to have that effect, of course. At least for a few days afterward. Unless you were a heartless scoundrel or a brainless narcissist. And though Rupert Giles had been called both at various times in his life, he was neither.

The day continued to drag on. Long afternoon shadows stretched into the dangerous gloaming of another evening in the land of the living dead. Again and again Giles wished that he had some way to directly contact Buffy if not Wesley himself. But the only thing he could have possibly done, even if he had been willing to leave his post at the library, would be to walk around this God forsaken town on foot. Wesley had taken his car.

He had tried calling Buffy's pager the first moment he had gotten to himself, a quarter of an hour after Wesley had struck out to find her. All he'd gotten for his trouble was the slight shock of hearing the thing vibrate to life and seeing it bounce and skitter across an inch or two of the reading table, right where she'd left it. That and the surreptitious tittering of the numerous students who'd been there to see him jump when it went off, making him feel all the more useless.

When Willow and Xander had appeared at the end of Period Six, Giles still had no useful information to impart. Not about Balthazar, nor the amulet, nor even the whereabouts of Buffy, or Faith, or Wesley. On the positive side, it was evident that Xander had held his tongue about what he'd heard through the office door, for which Giles was truly grateful.

For a moment, he had been tempted to send the two young people out to find Buffy and Faith, or to look in the obvious and relatively safe places—The Bronze, for example—at least. In fact, they had offered. But the Sun had still been high in the sky at that point. The Bronze hadn't even been open. Even Xander, who was keener on the idea that anyone, had realized that the Slayers' chosen battle field was probably underground, or deep within a large abandoned building somewhere.

Finally, they had left, offering to return if he needed them for any reason. Now, as the evening faded into night, he was tempted once again. But it was no good. Suddenly, _letting_ innocent children jump into the fray of the Slayer's nightly war and _asking_ them to do so seemed to be two very different things. Instead, he continued to wait, hoping the situation would resolve itself; feeling very much like an Ex-Watcher.

The night wore on, deep and black. As much as he tried to tell himself that he was probably worrying over nothing, Giles had a deep feeling of foreboding. He tried, without much success to take his mind off of his absent comrades by burring himself in research. He even made a small amount of progress, but only just.

Giles was able to confirm that the amulet was in deed intended to restore it's owner to full health and vitality following a catastrophic injury of a physical, magical, or spiritual kind. Though how exactly the demon had been injured—or killed as most sources would have it—remained a mystery. It wasn't even certain whether Gleaves had had anything to do with Balthazar's supposed death.

Giles sighed deeply. According to the clock on the wall it was half past nine. He couldn't sit and ponder any longer. He had to take action. He had to find his Slayers and their Watcher, to lay eye's on them, to make certain that they were alive. Unfortunately, he was still without transportation.

He'd have to call a taxi, Giles decided. A risky proposition in Sunnydale at night, as well he knew. But when he tried to think of other options, all he could come up with was begging a ride from Xander. Or Cordelia. All in all, he decided he would rather take his chances with the creatures of the night. Until he turned and saw one standing directly behind him.

“Ah!” Giles cried out with a start. Angel flinched as if he'd been slapped. His expression was grave, solemn, determined, and remorseful. Giles could feel his heart hammering. His whole body was shaking. His two strongest impulses were to bash the vampires face in with a sturdy chair and to run for his life. Perhaps both, in that order.

Of course, he did no such thing. He sat down and folded his hands in his lap so that the shaking was less obvious, not that he believed for a moment that the vampire was fooled by this. Angel's already guilty expression became guiltier still. For a moment, he literally hung his head in shame. It was humiliating, this acknowledgment of his victimhood, of Angel's unpunished crimes.

But Giles was both a civilized and reasonable man, which meant that, in this case, honor had to be left unsatisfied. No matter how much it chafed at both his temper and his sense of justice. Like it or not, Angel was in if not of their little band of demon fighters. And though he was no friend of Giles, he was Buffy's.

Honestly, if he were to be truly polite, Giles realized, he ought to have invited Angel to sit down. But a man can only bend so far in the name of politeness. Offering a seat at his table to the beast who had murdered the woman he loved and tortured him half to death was more that Giles was capable of at the moment.

“State your business,” Giles said impatiently instead.

Angel stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Twice he opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again without letting a single word pass, clearly conflicted, not knowing what to say. “Balthazar,” he said at last, his voice taking on an urgent quality. “He's not dead. He was gone for a while, but he's definitely back in town. Still weak, according to my sources, but that'll change if he gets his hands on his amulet.”

“I knew it!” Giles declare. Or maybe chided himself. “I should have known it,” he added much more quietly.

“Do you have the amulet here?” Angel asked, and without waiting for an answer, “You should destroy it. Tonight. Right away.”

Giles ignored the suppressed rage that welled up in him at the notion of Angel telling him what he should do. “I would,” he said instead, having to look away from the creature's intense, predatory gaze to keep his voice from shaking, “ except I haven't got it anymore. Buffy's new Watcher has.”


	13. Minor Details

Night fell. It fell hard, like a midsummer hailstorm, except that it kept falling for hours, long past the point when everything was well and truly smashed. There was nothing Wesley could do but wait, staring out the literally, almost comically, barred window of his cell. Worrying what his Slayers were getting up to. Dreading what Rupert would say if and when he got wind of the situation and came to post his bond. Pointedly not thinking about how they had left things, or what any of it had meant.

One phone call. That's what the man had said. If the prisoner was stupid enough to misdial the area code and get a wrong number, that wasn't his problem. He could take it up with the judge on Monday morning.

Little as he knew about American law, Wesley was quite certain that this was not the proper procedure. He was equally certain that no good would come of pressing the issue. There had been enough pushing and shoving and 'accidentally' slamming him into things without any provocation at all; he wasn't about to give these Cretans the excuse they needed to justify more serious violence.

He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do instead. Possible wait for his jailers to change shifts and then try for another phone call. He'd tried calling Rupert the first time, but he'd thought better about that since. It had just been a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that he didn't know another living soul on this entire continent well enough to have obtained a number at which they could be reached.

Next time he would call a lawyer, Wesley decided. Someone who could post his bond and hopefully arrange a ride back to the library. Inevitably, as the 'victim' of the supposed car theft, Rupert would hear of all this soon enough. But that was no reason to invite him down here to witness his colleague's humiliation in person, Wesley reasoned. He could hold on to at least that much dignity. That was a small comfort, a warm thought to hang on to.

So of course, Wesley told himself after the fact, he should have know that the hostile fates would never let it be. “Pryce!” a guard shouted, slamming his cell door open. There was no one else in the cell. They were standing two feet apart. Still, the man shouted, bellowed even.

Wesley got to his feet. “Yes?” he responded, as calmly and pleasantly as he could manage. He was long past trying to correct these people regarding his proper surname. It hardly seemed to matter in the face of the myriad indignities he had already suffered at their hands, including a body cavity search so throughout that he had half expected the chap to ask for his phone number. Lord help him, that was an interesting thought, but it was entirely beside the point.

Wesley wondered what they could possibly want from him now. Seconds before confirmation of the only reasonable answer to this question, a queasy feeling of certainty settled in the pit of his stomach. “The other one's here to get ya,” the guard supplied readily enough as he walked him to the front. “Came in a cab even. This time of night, it really must be true love.”

“Yes,” Wesley agreed facetiously, his pretensions to civility growing paper-thin, totally unsurprised at how quickly information about his association with Rupert had spread to every single person in this Hell-adjacent community who had even the slightest connection to law enforcement. “That would explain why he lent me his car, just as I told the officers, now wouldn't it.”

A stormy expression blew across the guard's face, but they had just walked out into the front lobby, where Wesley had ceased to be an inmate and been magically transformed into a human being once again. There was no more slamming him about. The guard sighed and headed back inside.

And there was Rupert Giles. Sanding and turning towards him. Wesley could not be sure, but he thought he saw an expression of worry, melting into relief on Mr. Giles' face just as he was turning around. If so, it was rapidly replaced with a look of unbelievable smugness.

“Good show, lad,” Rupert teased mercilessly as they walked across the lobby and out the front door towards the car park. “Taken care of everything, have you? No need for my interference?”

“Yes, thank you.” Wesley replied crisply, fluttering his ruffled dignity, “Your humor is greatly appreciated and so very useful to the cause.”

Rupert sighed, “As is your pride,” he added almost sharply, “But alright, strait to business if you like. I've signed an affidavit absolving you and no charges are going to be filed; however, it looks like there will be no chance of getting my car out of impound before morning. So, I've secured a cab, though there still might be a bit of an issue with the driver.”

“And what is that?” Wesley asked suspiciously as they approached the conspicuously yellow vehicle.

“Oh, nothing too difficult,” Rupert rejoined with exaggerated nonchalance, “We're just going to have to kill him.”

“Vampire,” Wesley reasoned aloud bitterly. There was no need of acknowledgment from Rupert of this obvious conclusion.

“They call him the Boatman,” Rupert elaborated instead. “He's been with Grim God knows how long. Thinks I'm trying to square things so that I can continue to patronize that fine establishment at which we met the other night.”

Wesley nodded thoughtfully, mainly to hide the fact that he was having trouble thinking. His heart was pounding madly and keeping his breathing slow and even required conscious effort. He didn't need to be told that the cabby's moniker was in reference to the fairy boat pilot who took the souls of the dead across the River Styx to the underworld. The two knew very well that, as with all Watchers, they shared a thorough and traditional classical education. Which saved time explaining things, if nothing else.

But right now, Wesley desperately needed some explanation of what exactly riding in this monster's cab had to do with being admitted to his slain paramour's favorite watering hole, not to mention some clue as to Rupert's plan of action. He stammered a word or two to that effect. “Just follow my lead,” Rupert declared, a bit too cavalierly for Wesley's taste, “I've got a plan for dealing with this fellow.”

That was hardly all that that needed to be decided and coordinated between them, but Rupert didn't seem to notice that very obvious fact. Wesley wasn't sure what to think, but he didn't think he liked whatever was happening. But they were at the car now. It was too late to ask for clarification. Or was it? Or had it only just become so while he had been hopelessly fretting about whether it was or it wasn't?

Just as Rupert was reaching for the door Wesley grabbed his arm. Forcefully. Desperately. Rupert turned to face him standing, very, very close. It was good, the very, very closeness of Rupert. It meant they might not be overheard. But it also meant that Wesley was breathing in the subtle but very masculine sent of his clean skin and the vague fruitiness of his shampoo.

Wesley suddenly found it even more difficult to concentrate. He had meant to ask a question, a vitally important question. He was sure of that much. He just didn't happen to remember what that vitally important question was.

Rupert leaned in closer, his head tilted at an angle, smiling mischievously. Wesley parted his lips slightly and closed his eyes, waiting for his kiss. For once he didn't care that they were standing in full view of a half a dozen witnesses or that dire matters needed their attention. His desire was so strong, Rupert's magnetism so powerful. This man, just this one man, he decided, could kiss him anytime and anywhere he liked.

Except that he wasn't kissing him, not exactly. Rupert pressed his lips against Wesley's ear and whispered softly, in a husky, amorous voice that was clearly meant to suggest what Wesley's visible response should be. “I got him this far by promising him the blood of Grim's killer,” he explained, more of less answering the question that Wesley had forgotten to ask. “Else he would have killed me long before we made it here. He's going to drive us someplace quiet where he expects to kill you and then probably me as well. Just let him get on top of you and I'll get him from b—I'll stake him in the back.”

Rupert swallowed a sigh. That slip hadn't been intentional, but the Blush it brought to Wesley's face lent authenticity to the suggestion that he was earnestly seducing the younger man to his death rather than plotting to turn the tables. As he pulled back and bent to open the door again, He gave Wesley's ear a little nibble, just of good measure.

Suddenly, Rupert found himself being pushed backward against the side of the cab with such force that his hands flew up defensively and would have covered his face, if not for the fact that Wesley's kiss began faster than he could protect himself. Not that he really would have wanted to. Wesley was getting better as the kissing, and what he still lacked in technique, he made up in passion. All things, considered, it also seemed a suitable end to the little play they had been putting on for Boatman's benefit.

“Just one thing,” Boatman said casually, once the cab was in motion with both men in the back. “I hope you don't mind, if we take a little detour. I'm meeting of few old friends for dinner.” It was at this point that both Wesley and Rupert discover that both the lock buttons and the interior door handles had been removed from the back seat doors, presumably while Rupert was inside the police station.

Boatman noticed them noticing. He shifted his face into vampire form and gave a toothy grin. “That what I love about you Watchers,” he laughed. “You're all so cleaver. Such attention to detail.”

 


	14. Spun

Giles fought back his panic as best he could. At least he was keeping his composure. Wesley, by contrast, though he wasn't literally weeping, was making little high pitched noises of apprehension. His eyes, wide with horror, clutched at Rupert like drowning men.

Truthfully, Giles was a bit shocked. Despite Wesley's overly delicate manors and his claiming the right to brag about facing vampires 'under controlled circumstances'; he was still the same fellow who had bested the Grim Reaper of Wilkens Street only a few days ago. Wasn't he?

But then, perhaps the experience had been too much for him. Perhaps one good slaying was all he had had in him, absent controlled circumstances. Perhaps. Perhaps not. This was no time for guessing games.

The why's and wherefores hardly mattered at this point. What mattered, Rupert reminded himself firmly, was stopping this bloody car before it reached its destination. What mattered was making an opportunity to fight, or at least to flee from, the Boatman while the numbers were still two to one in their favor. If that was even the proper count at this point.

Wesley's high pitched noises of terror were still coming quite steadily, and he was physically shaking as if he were in the very grip of the icy hand of death. He literally cringed against Rupert's side like a frightened child, more or less compelling him to put his arm around him. From that it was clear enough that, whatever he was going to do to save the both of them, not only had he better think it of it quickly, it had better be something he could do more or less entirely on his own.

The thing of it was, Rupert knew very well what Wesley was feeling and why he acted as he did. Had he the luxury wallowing in his feelings, he'd be a soggy mess right now. And could have easily been so, frankly, for the past several years. As could anyone who thought very much about the state of the world, come to that.

But damn it, Wesley was wallowing enough for the both of them; and leaving Rupert to do everything else. It wasn't as though any terrible thing was happening to Wesley that wasn't also happening to Rupert. Why did Wesley get to be the one to fall apart? And how could he bear to do it in front of anyone, especially his colleague and (it must be admitted) lover?

For the love of God, they were men. What was more they were Englishmen. By Hades and all the gods of Hell, they were Watchers! Giles was suddenly furious. He could have throttled Wesley if he'd had the time to waste. Instead, he pushed the younger man away from him so forcefully that he had to catch himself against the door opposite Rupert's

Wesley looked back at him with the wide eyes of a child. Stunned. Frightened. Bereft. Accusing? Rupert felt the stirrings of remorse, but this was hardly the time. He'd half thought of a sort of meager precursor of a plan, and for lack of any better option he began to put it into action.

Not bothering to hide it, sort of making a show of it really, Rupert took his belt from around his waist, glad that he had picked today not to wear his suspenders. He buckled both his and Wesley's seatbelts and then set to work. Calmly and quietly, he began pushing his belt into the small crack between the door and the frame of the car, as near the latch as he could get it. Which wasn't terrible close, but that was difficult to see from the driver's seat, with the tented glass and thick iron mesh that separated them.

Boatman turned his head just enough to let his passenger know that he was smirking as he watched him in the empty-seeming rearview, unimpressed. Giles kept up his bluff. He went on forcing the stiff leather strap into the excruciatingly tight aperture, marking his exceedingly small progress with sounds of effort and satisfaction that he did not have to fake. 

Giles was nowhere near to forcing the latch. Indeed, if it had popped open just at that moment, with the cab zipping along the downtown streets of Sunnydale at a reckless sixty-five miles per hour, he might have been very sorry. But the increasingly uneasy look in Boatman's eyes as his gaze darted more an more frequently to his mirror was reward enough for Rupert's efforts. He kept on pushing, favoring his captor with a defiant smirk.

“What the Hell do you think you're doing?” the vampire said finally, sounding more irritated than angry, but a bit uneasy none-the-less.

“Guess,” said Giles coolly, keeping up his tedious work. Among a certain class of demons here in Sunnydale, Giles had something of a reputation for being unhampered by locks and other mechanisms meant to prevent theft and destruction. In this particular case, he doubted he could have popped the latch in less than ten or fifteen minutes even if he'd had pry bar and a descent source of light. But Boatman didn't know that. Or at least he wasn't sure.

Wesley did not react to this exchange at all, Giles noticed. He was sitting straight as a rod now, shoulders squared, staring straight ahead. Occasionally, he would do some painfully irrelevant thing such as straightening his tie with a look of great satisfaction or fussing a bit with his cuff links. In short, Giles assessed, Wesley had checked out. He had wrapped himself in a warm, snug coat of denial that allowed him to act as if he were merely an ordinary man taking an ordinary ride in a taxicab. Pillock.

“Cut that out!” Boatman snapped, clearly more worried than he would have liked to admit.

“Come back here and make me!” Rupert challenged.

“If I have to do that,” Boatman Countered, “I'm going to fuck your little girlfriend here to death and then skin him alive while you watch!” At this, Wesley began trembling, but otherwise he gave no response.

“Hmm,” Giles replied exaggerating more than feigning a look and tone of smug superiority. “I'm guessing rhetoric and logic were not your best subjects at school, because that sequence of events really doesn't quite work out if you think about it.” And then, because Boatman wasn't yet sufficiently angry and distracted either to pull over and try to make good on his threats or to ran the cab into a ditch, he added, “More probably you never went to school. Not that it would matter with the schools you have here in this nation of morons and imbeciles, you brain-dead American Troglodyte!”

That did it. In Rupert's experience, that did it for most Americans, dead or alive. For the first time in all the tedious years he had spent here, he thanked God for this cultural peculiarity. Boatman's demonic face turned purple with rage, and he something between snarled and roared, like a big jungle cat. He turned almost fully around, punched a hole in the glass, and grabbed at the iron mesh with his bloodied fist.

Wesley let out a brief, staccato scream and cringed back in his seat. Giles may have jumped a bit himself if he were being honest. But he quickly regained his courage. He pulled a tiny bottle of holy water from his inside coat pocket and threw it in the vampire's face. The bottle shattered against the screen. A lot of its contents splashed harmlessly onto the metal and the remaining glass, but enough made it onto the vampire's face and hand to produce a distinct sizzling sound, and several satisfying cries of pain.

Boatmen pulled on the metal harder than ever, cursing as the wet spots on the mesh continued to burn his hands, while the broken glass continued to cut him. The iron started to bend, not quickly, but perceptibly. He was only giving the road ahead occasional, over-the-shoulder glances now, driving with one hand and attacking the partition with the other.

Suddenly there was a squeal of tires and a blaring of horns. Giles was jarred by an impact but could not say what direction it had come from. The cab was spinning in the street, making several full turns, like a roulette wheel, or the cylinder in the revolver used for the other kind of roulette.

When it came to a stop, Rupert opened his eyes. He was startled and terrified to realize that he had closed them under such dire circumstance. It was a lapse that could have spelled death of both Watchers. Except for the fact that they were now sitting alone in the destroyed taxi. There was dust in the front seat, and a hole in the bloody, ruined windshield easily big enough to accommodate Boatman's head.


	15. What Now?

By the time they'd finished with the police, _again_ , it was after midnight. Fortunately, even the Sunnydale PD had not been able to think of any reason to arrest two passengers for being in a one vehicle crash from which the driver had 'apparently fled on foot'. Unfortunately, they also weren't inclined to give them a ride anywhere, even to their homes, which was not where they needed to be in any case.

Instead, they struck out for the library, which was much nearer the scene of the crash as well as having access to greater resources for research. Each man kept one hand inside his coat, holding a stake at the ready. This did not make Giles feel particularly safe, and he doubted it did Wesley either. In point of fact, the man was still shaking.

Giles was tempted to offer him an arm for support, but given the younger Watcher's mercurial temperament, there was no telling how he might interpret the gesture. Both of their nerves were already worn so thin that the slightest disagreement or miscommunication could spark a screaming, shouting, perhaps even physical altercation between them. It seemed safest not to risk being distracted from the very serious matter of reaching the library alive.

To Rupert's pleasant surprise, they made it as far as the small park across the street from the school without any incidents, demonic or domestic. And their luck continued to hold. On one score. But not the other.

As they approached the crosswalk, looking both ways for more than one kind of danger, both Watchers braced to react to anything. Or anything to which the proper response was a short burst of intense, low-tech violence at any rate. They were both wound as tight as watch springs.

With their home base in sight, Rupert began planning out loud, hoping to steady his nerves with the comforting feeling that he was actually doing something about the many grave difficulties they faced. “The first thing we've got to do is call all the children and find out if any of them have heard from Buffy.”

Wesley made no response.

“If not,” Giles continued earnestly, “then we are just going to have to call Joyce.”

Again, no response.

“I don't like involving her any more than you do,” he continued, trying to persuade his silent companion of a course of action he was sure to oppose. “But either she's heard from her or she hasn't and either way, we ought to know. She may also be able to lend us her car to go and find her if necessary.

Silence. Giles was standing in the middle of the street alone. He turned to find Wesley still lingering on the pavement, staring wide-eyed, mouth open.

Rupert ought to have assumed it was a look of panic, he supposed. Ought to have been scanning the area for signs of immanent physical danger. But something in Wesley's stance, some subtlety of his expression, seemed to suggest acute _social_ discomfort, a hesitance to speak and be judged.

“Alright then, what?” Giles asked matter-of-factly, or (truth be told) a bit impatiently.

Wesley took a deep breath and then hesitated a moment longer. “I did, um, well, locate as it were... That is to say...”

Rupert stood in the street and waited, hands clasped behind him, no longer hiding his impatience. “Well?” he demanded at last. “Out with it man!”

Welsley's eyes widened further and his mouth stood open once again. He began to tremble harder than ever. Rupert was on the point of castigating him for his unseemly timidity, when bright lights, a blaring horn, and the suddenly deafening road of a diesel engine alerted him to the fact that he'd nearly been flattened an eighteen-wheeler. It had had to swerve to miss him, and still, it had been a near miss.

“Come on!” Rupert snapped impatiently, perfectly aware that his near death had been his own fault but resenting Wesley for it just the same, “Whatever you're so afraid to tell me, you can sputter about it inside as well as out!”

With that, Giles strode across the street and around to the side door of the library with an air of purpose and ruffled dignity. Wesley was left blinking in surprise for only a moment before running to catch up. Rupert's ridiculous response to this evening's latest brush with death left Wesley more flustered than ever; and frankly, rather miffed. So far as he knew, it had not been his day to remind perfectly capable grown men not to stand in the way of huge lorries.

Neither of them spoke as Rupert fumbled in his pocket for his keys and unlocked the door. They both stood there bristling, each prepared to defend himself against the other. Silence continued to reign as they entered the library and hung up their coats.

At last, relaxing just a bit now that he had reached his proverbial 'safe place' Giles ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I know what we need,” he declared confidently, most of the edge gone from his voice.

Wesley nodded gravely. “Sex,” he agreed. Or at any rate, he had thought he was agreeing. It had seemed the perfectly obvious answer.

Giles looked at Wesley as though he had grown two extra heads out of his shoulders, his sense of righteous indignation fully recovered. “I was going to say 'tea'.” he retorted. “Honestly, is that your answer to everything? There's a vampire trying to kill us; hmm let's have sex! Our Slayers are missing and we have a nearly indestructible amulet to destroy; say, I know, let's have sex! Balthazar is alive, in town, and plotting to destroy the world; alright ten, let's have sex! Makes perfect sense!”

“Well I dare say it makes more sense than shouting at me every time you nearly get one or both of us killed!” Wesley snapped back. “And I will have you know that our Slayers are not missing, the amulet is in good hands, or so Buffy tells me, and Balthazar is dead!”

In good hands. _Or so Buffy tells me._ God in heaven! Could any Watcher be such a fool as that? Apparently this one could, but still, Giles needed to hear it from his own mouth to believe it. “Good Lord!” he demanded, “Tell me you did not give Balthazar's mystical healing amulet to the vampire Angelus!”

“Of course not!” Wesley snapped. “I met up with Buffy and we decided to give it to a friend of hers.” There. That sounded plausible, no need to dwell on the details of who had done the deciding. “For safe keeping until he can destroy it,” he added primly, when Rupert continued to look cross and expectant.

“A boyfriend of hers, apparently,” he continued, feeling just a bit superior, glad to be the one in the know for once. “I'd have thought you would have known him; but then, perhaps you're not one to keep up with the small details of your Slayers' lives. Useful though such information might be, what with them apparently having free reign to include anyone they like in Counsel business.”

“You prat!” Giles declared contemptuously, “Angelus _is_ her 'boyfriend'! And Buffy hasn't any better sense than to trust him because of it. I've been shining him on, letting him think I'd trust him to destroy it if only I'd had it with me; waiting for you to come back so that we could destroy it ourselves! So that we could know for a fact that it actually has been destroyed!! But instead, you seek him out and give it to him!!!”

Wesley was red in the face now and nearly apoplectic with anger. “Well now is a bloody good time to just be mentioning all this isn't it!” He shouted. “Hello, this is your new Slayer; and oh, by the by, she happens to be shacked up with an evil bloodsucking demon who might literally be Jack the Ripper!”

“Hmph!” Giles snorted. “It was in the diaries. The ones you've been making such a show of reading. Never mind my Reports to the Council, which you clearly haven't bothered to read at all.”

“Well, in that case—” Wesley began to interrupt, his voice thick with irony.

Giles interrupted him right back. “And if you had, you would know that he has had his soul restored for the second time quite recently, which—together with his undeniable physical appeal— rather explains why a girl of eighteen might be tempted to trust him with something priceless and dangerous; but honestly, you are old enough to know better!

“Not that you had a bloody clue in hell, who you were trusting.” Giles continued. “You didn't even get his name! Honestly, what did he do? Bat his eyes at you and then take the amulet while you were standing there stammering and tripping over your own tongue?”

“Ha!” Wesley shouted, sounding oddly triumphant under the circumstances, “Now who can't think of anything but sex?”

“Still you,” Rupert grumbled. “Sod the tea,” he added. "I've got a bottle of Scotch in my desk drawer. I think we could both do with something to calm our nerves while we decide what to do next.”


End file.
